City Council - Regular Meeting

So we'll call the meeting order for the record is six at 4 30 PM. We'll begin this afternoon's work session with roll call attendance.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Councilman Taylor?

Here.

Councilwoman Strader? Councilman Whitlock? Here. Councilwoman Little-Roberts? Here. Councilman Overton?

Here.

Mayor Simison?

Here.

Next up is the adoption of the agenda. Mr. Mayor. Councilman Overton. On tonight's agenda, we'll be removing Item 20, the Prosecution Services Budget Amendment, and with that one change, I move that we adopt the agenda as published.

Second.

I have a motion and a second to adopt the agenda with the removal of Item 20. Is there any discussion? If not, all in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed, nay. The ayes have it, and the agenda is agreed to with that modification. Next up is the consent agenda.

Mr. Mayor. Councilman Overton. There are no changes to tonight's consent agenda. I move that we approve the consent agenda for the mayor to sign and the clerk to attest.

Second.

I have a motion and a second to approve the consent agenda.

Is there any discussion? If not, all in favor signify by saying aye.

Aye.

Those opposed, nay. The ayes have it. And the consent agenda is agreed to. There were no items moved from the consent agenda, so we will move on to our first item this evening under department reports will be the Hawaii High School Baseball State Champions Day Proclamation. So if I could invite the coach and the team to join me at the podium, we'd appreciate that. So, Council, we're here once again for this opportunity to recognize another Owyhee Storm State Championship opportunity. You guys may not notice, we get the softball team later this evening at the 6 o'clock meeting, so I tried to dress appropriately. Not wearing my family's colors tonight, but I'm here in strong support of what you all are accomplishing. By raise of hands, how many of you, this is your first state championship with Owyhee? Okay, leave them up if you're on number two. Three? There better not be any who had four, because otherwise we have a problem. Well, coaches can count, not the students from that. But we're excited to have you here tonight. We're going to read a proclamation, then ask your coaches to say any words, and ask each of you to just say your name, your year, and your position. For some of you, that's old hat, but we love getting all your names on the record for the community. So with that, Whereas being an Owyhee High School baseball player is more than making, pitching, fielding, hitting, and achieving state titles. It is training to build leadership, character, confidence, teamwork, and resilience. All traits need to succeed on the field, in the classroom, and in the real world. And whereas the hard work and dedication of the Owyhee Storm baseball team and coaches resolved the school's fourth championship since the school opened five years ago. And whereas the Storm closed the regular season winning 23 of 24 games. And whereas the championship marked the first time the Storm have swept the conference, district, and state titles in the same year. And whereas the leadership, training, discipline of their coaches helped all team members to focus their talents, passion, and determination to becoming a winning team, with each player making valuable contributions to their victory. Therefore, I, Mayor Robert E. Simpson, hereby proclaim June 23rd, 2026, as Owyhee High School Baseball State Champions Day, and the City of Brandon call upon the community to join me in congratulating the Owyhee High Storm on their remarkable athletic achievement and for representing Meridian so proudly in the state tournament. They had this 23rd day of June, 2026. So on behalf of myself, city council, and our community, congratulations. And we're happy to have you recognize you this evening and invite one or two other coaches want to come up and say any words. So coach.

Thank you. I was not prepared for this, so I'll do my best. My name is Matt Rasmussen. I had the honor of being the head coach of the 2026 Owyhee Storm baseball team. And I just want to thank the mayor and the city council for having us today and recognizing the accomplishments of. of these guys and what they're able to do this season to win the conference, to win the districts, to win a regional, and then go into the state tournament and win three straight. It was pretty amazing, a great ride. Nobody thought we could do it this year, which was kind of, I don't know, kind of the chip we played with on our shoulder, I believe. We graduated 13 guys a year ago in 25, and everyone had written us off. That's why this group's pretty special, because they worked and grinded and didn't like being told they weren't good enough to win it, and it's exactly what we did. We played better than anybody else. So thank you to the parents, the Hawaii administration, the coaches on the staff, and all of these guys right here. We only graduated five, so... You know, no guarantees, but we hope to be standing here a year from now, too. So thank you. Yeah.

My name is CJ Conklin. I'm a junior pitcher.

My name is Christian Zanito. I'm a junior pitcher.

My name is Nathan Keith, and I am a senior catcher and pitcher. My name is Matt Robertson. I am a junior third baseman. My name is Max Menke, and I was a junior outfielder. My name is Jack Hollenbeck, and I was a junior shortstop. My name is Jack Booth, and I'm a junior outfielder. My name is Aiden Peterson, and I'm a junior pitcher.

My name is Tegan McGee and I'm a junior outfielder.

My name is Knox Thomas. I was a sophomore pitcher.

My name is Kelly Leak and I was a senior pitcher.

My name is Xander Jakovac and I was a sophomore middle infielder.

My name is Landon Medina and I was a first baseman junior. My name is Jada Gallegos and I'm a junior catcher. My name is Carter Sullivan.

I was a sophomore pitcher and outfielder.

My name is Jacob Ruffing, and I was a junior third baseman. My name is Owen Plew, and I was a sophomore pitcher. My name is Paul Zam. I was a junior pitcher. My name was Jaden Balian. I was a junior pitcher. My name is Ian Patterson, and I was a junior pitcher.

First off, senior players missing. Brooks Romer, senior outfielder. Shelby Pease, senior first baseman. And Pax Henry-Lang, senior pitcher. My name is Brooks Juhasz, and I'm the pitching coach.

Assistant coach, Justin Hollenbeck.

Steven Rollmeier, four rings. Assistant coach.

Thank you.

Okay, council, with that, with item 20 being removed, we'll move on to item 21, which is a fiscal year 2026 budget amendment in the amount of $31,597 for Meridian Pool building maintenance. Turn this over to Mr. White.

Mr. Mayor, members of council, thanks for having me tonight. Like the mayor said, in front of you is a budget amendment for $31,597. In short, as we started de-winterizing the pool back in April all the way through May, one thing after another started adding up on a ton of unexpected maintenance items. Everything from a roof leak to... pump circulation pump going out that you just can't really know until they go out and as those things kept tallying we started thinking okay we need to either go a budget amendment and and come and talk to you guys about it so the big one that's on here as explained in the memo that we had is the the lights in the in the pool in the big pool um they were all working last year everything was great fire everything up this year and we found that they seven of the ten are out That was a big expense. So at this point, we're here in front of you to ask for the budget amendment to cover these project costs. So with that, I will stand for questions.

Thank you. Council, any questions? Mr. Mayor. Councilman Schroeder.

Appreciate you guys coming for this. We sent the information to the council and a couple council members wanted the kind of good hygiene of doing it as a budget amendment. It's something we need to do. I feel like that's pretty straightforward. So with that, I move that we approve the fiscal year 2026 budget amendment in the amount of $31,597 for the Meridian Pool maintenance. Second.

I have a motion and a second to approve item 21. Is there any discussion? If not, clerk, call the roll.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor Taylor.

Aye.

Mr. Rader. Aye. Woodlock. Aye. Little-Roberts. Aye. Overton.

Aye. All ayes. Motion carries. The item is agreed to. Thank you. Next item up is item number 22, which is the fiscal year 2026 budget amendment in the amount of 173,700 for Ustick and Venable signalized intersection design. Mr. White, you can take this one too.

All right, Mr. Mayor, members of council, thanks again for having me. This budget amendment is something that we've been talking about for a little bit now or for a while. This is the signalization of the Venable and Ustick intersection like we had discussed before and like the memo says. In short, the CDA, the Cooperative Development Agreement that we're getting into with Brighton and ACHD is super close to being done. You guys should actually see that for approval and signature in the next few weeks. Got that feedback this morning, right before this, so look forward to that. And before we sign that, we need to have a budget for it. So we're here in front of you guys to get that approved. This is our proportionate share of the CDA, which is basically the design of the project. And then the CDA kind of divvies out who pays for it and those things after that. So with that, I'll stand for questions.

Thank you, Garrett. And this is impact fees for this, which is part of that project portion as well. Thank you. Council, any questions for Garrett?

Mr. Mayor?

Councilman Schrader.

Nice to see a project come together in a critical area. Definitely important for us to approve this. I move that we approve the fiscal year 2026 budget amendment in the amount of $173,700 for the Ustick and Venable signalized intersection design. Second.

I have a motion and a second to approve item 22. Is there a discussion? If not, clerk, call the roll.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Taylor? Strader?

Aye. Whitlock?

Aye. Little-Roberts? Aye. Overton?

Aye. All ayes. Motion carries. I'm as agreed to. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Garrett. Thank you, Steve. And up next is item 23, which is flex space and other UDC standards update. Mr. Hood, Mr. Parsons, I don't know if you're tag teaming or who's leading out, but it looks like Mr. Hood.

Mr. Mayor, that's me. I do have Mr. Parsons and Mr. Miles was here just a minute ago, but so they're here for support. Should I need it? So this afternoon, we'd like to talk to you about some potential UDC changes. There's a very brief cover memo that was in your packet. The clerk is handing out some more detailed information. They're collated, Chris, so hopefully you can just give a... Oh, sorry, I tried to make it more simple. But there's basically three things in the UDC regarding legislative changes. So Emily Kane spoke to you a few weeks ago. And so this is a follow up to a few of those items. And then we're going to further discussion on flex space. So all have some code implications. But we're going to kind of take these in order of what I think is easiest hardest. I'm going to go ahead and get started because I think the first one is fairly straightforward. So this last legislative session, House Bill 800, amended two sections of Idaho Code. The first one really doesn't pertain to planning, but the second section, 6765, is the Local Land Use Planning Act, so it does affect planning. What we do in our office, essentially, the second bullet summarizes it again, changed two sections of state law. So this is certainly paraphrasing the intent of that, but basically manufactured units. So units that are prefabricated and brought onsite are to be treated as traditional stick built or wood framed type homes in basically all aspects. And this also includes the same for multifamily. So you can take those same, say, 400-square-foot things that are manufactured on-site and put three of them together to have a 1,200-square-foot dwelling, and we have to treat them the same as we would, again, a traditional stick-built home. The UDC does already address single-family homes that way. So we already, in our definitions and in the way we treat manufactured homes, is as if it were a single-family dwelling situation. um but we don't currently address that for multi-family dwelling units so again if someone took 400 square foot manufactured units and put them on top with three different units and made a multi-family dwelling we don't call that out as being something that uh would be currently permitted so we are uh proposing one change you can see on this slide and it's highlighted i believe i even put it in yellow uh on on that first handout sheet titered manufactured homes. So that's the only change to this one for us to be code compliant. I have vetted this through legal and others on the team, but here to wordsmith, well, there'll be public hearings on this, but if there's a better way, I should have started with that. If there's something else or a better way that you want us to approach this, certainly open to that. But this one I think is pretty straightforward, but I will pause in case there are any comments on this one.

Council, any questions? Councilman?

Caleb, is the definition from the legislative text or is that our definition that we've created to conform?

So the last portion of this slide, the UDC change is a change to the UDC. And the only thing that's changing is the underlying part. So we already have a multifamily dwelling definition. What we're doing is, and what's underlined is, it's not verbatim, but it's essentially the way that the state law reads. So, yeah, there's some slight wordsmithing that went on there. So it doesn't exactly mirror it, but I believe it does in intent to the bill.

Councilman Schroeder.

Thank you. Just more like curious, I have a good sense of what a traditional manufactured home is. I'm just kind of curious, what type of project would we be likely to see that would be a multi-unit manufactured building? I'm just kind of curious what that would look like if we've seen examples of that. Does that mean it's something that's just prefabricated? Because I've seen that, but just help us understand a little more what we're talking about.

Yeah, I might actually. I don't think we've seen any here in Meridian, Mayor Council. I don't think we've seen any in Meridian, but I have seen in other places where, again, you pre-manufacture the units and basically almost like what we have over with the project across the street where it's podium style and you just build them up and bring those units and then you finish them out individually, but they're largely manufactured off-site. That was going to be basically a pre-manufactured facility. Podium style multifamily project. So I don't know if technically it was. I can't remember how we actually permitted that. But it's something like that essentially where you're bringing them mostly built and on site and siting them. Can you think of any other bill that we've seen that would do something like that instead of a more steel or wood frame concrete even tilt up type of building? I'm not aware of any.

Mayor's member of the council. I'm with Caleb. I haven't seen that, but I think this also addresses where someone could have one parcel to develop, but bring in multiple units. So although it may not, may not be just one, it might be one building, but multiple buildings situated on a site or developed on the property. So although it's all just one building, it's still maybe 10 units on one property. And therefore we would still define it as multifamily and we'd still have to allow that. under this provision as well. So I have seen that example in Meridian where they've done a single family development, but because they didn't condo the building or subdivide the property, it was defined and approved as a multifamily development.

Yeah, and maybe just to build on that, that's a good point. And I have seen, again, same thing, I think, where there's multiple manufactured single family dwellings that aren't attached to each other, right, on one property. And by our definition, that would be multifamily. So.

Mr. Mayor.

Councilman Schroeder.

But just just so I understand, I don't think at least before there is anything in our code that would have prevented like modular construction techniques or the use of those. This is just sort of explicitly conforming to the legislation. That's right. Then got it. Thank you.

Any other comments, questions? Okay.

All right, we're going to go to the second handout then, which has to do with accessory dwelling units. So this one, I think there's the citation of the Senate Bill 1354 and then the two sections of Idaho code that, again, were modified by this. Title 55 has to do with homeowners association, so I'm not going to really talk about that, but essentially prevents HOAs as well as the city, which, again, back to 6765. from banning ADUs in residential zoning areas. And then this is the part that I wanna highlight. It preempts certain standards that we currently have in process. So we're gonna have to, excuse me, even though we just modified this, uh about six months ago we have to come back in and slightly tweaked up good news is uh you all didn't uh want to have a homeowner occupied requirement there so you had that dialogue um good thing we didn't adopt that because the state uh would have preempted it should you have done that so um but there are a couple of things that i do want to call your attention and do need a little bit of direction on this one again it's all on the table but there's some more i think we we would like to have your input in which direction to go and there are options so Again, we're in pretty good shape here in that the UDC currently allows ADUs in all residential zoning districts, but those standards that need to be revised. And I thought what I'd do just real quick is I'll read this section that talks about what we can and can't do basically as a city. So we have to allow for either one internal accessory dwelling unit or one detached accessory dwelling unit per lot in the rear yard or subject to setback requirements for their primary dwelling in all residential zoning districts. We can't require any off-street parking or guest parking for an accessory dwelling unit unless the principal dwelling unit does not have off-street parking or the street is not paved. and designed or constructed for on-street parking or unless the principal dwelling unit is within one-quarter mile of transit and employment area or commercial services. I'm going to just pause there, so I made it through two. Staff is proposing to not have or remove the current requirement for parking for ADUs. This is a very convoluted section of the code, in my opinion, and it is going to be a nightmare if we were going to try to regulate that and keep up with if this is... I don't even know what an employment area is. We don't designate those necessarily, or commercial services. And what does that mean? There's a C-store within a quarter mile, so... And it even seems backwards to me in that you should require the parking if you're further away than that. So this is very, I don't think it's the best section of the code, again, in my opinion. So in the conversations with staff, we decided it's best just to not require parking for ADUs. I know historically, not even this council, but previous councils too, that has been a big concern for neighborhood character and things like that. But again, we're sort of preempted in a lot of this discussion. There is a way to do it, but it's darn near impossible. All of our streets are paved. So really, it would be difficult to have that parking requirement. So that's what staff is proposing is to get rid of the parking standard. I should just point out that is the underlying strikethrough on the handout is there too. So that's subsection G on page two or the backside of the first page, I guess, page two. So you can see that's a simple strikethrough on our current standards. to go on then uh we can't pro we can't impose impact fees or utility connection fees on accessory dwellings that are greater than those imposed on single family dwellings so um staff's proposal is to charge them just the same because the dwelling unit's a dwelling unit we do have differences in some of those impact fees for multi-family versus single family but these are single family dwelling units by definition the state law does allow us to be less restrictive if we wanted to so there are a couple of these things if they're standards and you say you know what when i get to size even we don't have to interpret it to be more restrictive if we want to be less restrictive we can staff is not proposing that though This one is another one that I'm going to pause after reading. It says prohibit limiting the size of an accessory dwelling unit to less than 1,000 square feet or 75% of the size of the primary dwelling. That does not say whichever is greater or whichever is less. So we've taken sort of the conservative approach to say whichever is greater. At least that's our proposal now. It does mean that you can have some very large accessory dwelling units, a 4,000 square foot home could have a 3,000 square foot ADU. but it's not clear in how this is written, and we'd rather not be the first challenged in the state if we interpret it the wrong way. We have seen from other folks that were part of the committee and in the legislature that have sort of interpreted it the other way, and we certainly could if council is pretty confident in that, and I think it is probably whichever is least, but it's certainly not clear here, and so we're playing sort of the least risk in the courts anyways, maybe more risky in neighborhoods if someone were to build a 3,000 square foot ADU in that example. But that staff's proposal is the greater of the two is your option. So I don't know if there's any thoughts on that.

Mr. Neri, can you give your two cents on what would be the, if we were challenged, is it a financial or is it a code change?

So, Mr. Member, as a counsel, we think it would probably be an action where they would like to get a permit and they aren't allowed to because it doesn't meet our standard. And so it would likely not be a damage claim. It would be more like an injunctive action that requires to do something. But, again, it's hard to know with the way the statute's written. But I don't see it as a financial impact potentially. It's more likely a court forcing us to really allow something to get billed.

So the risk to go the opposite direction from what staff is recommending at this point in time, it would be little to the city, likely?

It's probably, I mean, I think where the staff, where we've landed from both legal and planning is, The safest route to not get challenged would be to do what we're proposing. If we want to run the risk of getting challenged, is there a financial impact? I don't think so. Could there be some other impact? Possibly, again, defending ourselves, spending the time on that and trying to do that. But other than that, I don't know.

Yeah. Getting challenged but going to the legislature to try to get clarification? No. seems like an appropriate way to go compared to the opposite of allowing a 3,000 square foot. Is that an ADU?

Well, and I think Mr. Mayor, members of the council, I mean, one of the things we struggled with and what I don't think the legislature thought about is That may seem very out of place in a traditional, normal neighborhood. It may not be out of place on a price of property that's two acres large. And so it really is so relative. And the legislature didn't really take into that consideration. It just gave us a square footage amount and set a percentage in relation to the original building. Nothing about the property itself.

Just for, I mean, my house is 3,000 square feet, so I could do a 2,200 square feet ADU adjacent to mine. Am I limited in height? Can I go to four stories? Are ADUs limited by all the other codes we have?

Mr. Mayor getting ahead of me a little bit it is on the slide, but yes, we have amended proposing to amend in our and the changes so maybe just to put up a bow around the last point the maximum size of subsection E so on the bottom of the first page so if you want to change that or take direction on I'm I'm happy to do that and then to the height is. Uh, it's just a small adding, uh, middle of page two under I addresses height. So it's under design. So that is one of the things that the legislature is, uh, allowing cities to regulate. So your ADU can't be taller than the primary structure. So we are adding that to our code. We had some other things that made it kind of, Hey, fit into your neighborhood type of a thing. Um, but height was particular specifically called out in the legislation. So we're going to add it to our code. We thought that was a good thing to, again, Try to keep within with neighborhood character, not to allow it to be taller than the primary dwelling.

Mr. Mayor, Mayor's Council, I don't recall, Caleb, but it doesn't require that we have to adjust anything in regards to setbacks or anything else either. So if it's a fairly small lot, it would be awfully hard to put a building of that size on it. But I think that's the only restriction we've had.

And that's why I was asking about the height, because you can go up and go up. Right. But if you can't, then yes.

Yeah, Mr. Mayor, I think just my recollection of some of the discussion about this, keeping in mind, you know, we think of ADUs in the context of Meridian. It's very different than, you know, Kootenai County or Butte County or Bingham County or Blackfoot, Idaho. So these rules all apply. So I think... They're probably, I think the goal was maximum flexibility and the minimal amount of requirements from the legislature. So I don't think I would disagree at all with council and with Bill's and Caleb's recommendations about where they're at in terms of, it seems awkward and strange, but that's because we're thinking of a quarter acre lot you know, and try to put an ad you that's the same size as your house on it. So I think it's probably the safe space to be at this point without any additional clarification from the legislature on that.

Mr. Mayor, that's one straighter.

Just a couple, I think our setback requirements can still apply, thankfully, or you just like have a complete nightmare. I personally, I don't love the, I guess, interpretive approach of whichever is greater. I don't feel like that's a great fit for our city. Like personally, it's my opinion. I would prefer the interpretation of whichever is less and then see how that sorts itself out and try to get clarification from the legislature. And I do appreciate the thought around building height. I think that's probably where we would get the biggest pushback. I have experienced that personally in my district with a lot of frustration from people. And I'm just imagining if somehow the setback requirements were met and then you had a situation where you ended up with... know a 3 000 square foot home next to a 4 000 square foot home and how would people feel about that and i just i again like any situation where um they're trying to uphold people's property rights so we're trying to balance that with the character of the city i personally would prefer i guess a tailored approach that's whichever is less but that's just my my input

Mr. Mayor, just sort of on the fly, and it may be a horrible idea, we could mirror the language in the statute and just sort of punt it. That puts it on staff, though. The first one that comes in that's 1,001 square feet, it's on us to make that call. Like I said, I'm not saying it's a great option, but we could just use their language and go, we don't know. And then we either – at that time we say, yep, we're going to give you the permit for that 1,001 square foot ADU or we're going to deny it because it's more than 1,000 square feet. I don't know. Again, I said it might be a bad option, but we could – We got a 50-50 chance if we take whichever is less or whichever is greater, but it's got to be one or the other. I can't do it both ways. So we can move on and double back. And again, there'll be public hearings on this too. So yeah, we don't all have to agree right now, but I appreciate the feedback. And we kind of had this similar conversation, so. And then I'm just going to keep going down. I already mentioned no owner occupancy requirements. We can't do that. So we don't have it. So that doesn't apply at this point. And then here's the section, Mr. Mayor, prohibit imposing a limit on building height that is less than the height of an existing single family primary dwelling on the lot. So again, and then prohibit restricting for accessory dwelling units that are more restrictive than the restrictions for single family dwellings within the same zoning district with regard to setbacks. lot size or coverage on building frontage. So again, we're going to treat them like the other dwelling on the site and not preferential treatments or less setbacks or more. So they have to be approved administratively. Luckily, we already do that. You don't see ADUs. They just are staff level approval. And then here's something I probably could have put on the slide, could have, should have, would have. This does only apply to cities of over 10,000 people. So the counties are exempt. It is only – and 10,000 is not a large city necessarily, but that is – this only applies to cities of 10,000 population or more. So the smaller cities are exempt. And again, you have underlying strikethrough of the draft. I'm not trying to put you on the spot. You can email me, call me, whatever, and we can talk through it some more if you have any other questions or concerns on this. I'll take them now, but I'm going to move on to the last one here unless there's anything right now. Okay. Starter home subdivisions. So this is a new one. This is brand new legislation. This section actually already does exist, though, but it's new. So I don't know which one is going to be 6541 and 6542. They had two bills that had the same. section of code. But this is Senate Bill 1352. Again, only applies to cities over 10,000. We have to amend both our comp plan and our zoning code to allow what are called starter home subdivisions. I think most all of you are tracking this and kind of know, but it applies to properties that are four acres or more. And this is optional. It doesn't mean you have to. If you're a five-acre project, it doesn't mean you have to do this. But the city has to allow 1,500 square foot, maximum 1,500 square foot lots in all residential zones. And there are preemptive requirements to our setbacks. So it doesn't matter if you're an R2 zone, you have to allow a 15 foot front setback for a starter home subdivision. So all of our zoning code basically gets preempted by this to allow 1,500 square foot lots in all residential zones throughout the city. High density, low density, medium density everywhere. could be a starter home subdivision if your four acres or more and you apply for it so again this isn't mandated that private property owners have to do starter home subdivisions but we have to allow it um so there will be some pretty substantial amendments in multiple sections of the udc we don't define starter homes as of yet so first page there's a definition and again this one pretty much does mirror the legislative language of what a starter home subdivision is. I'm not going to run through all of them. I sort of just did. There's all kinds of footnotes and things within our schedule of use and our tables that talk about starter home subdivisions and basically give them an exemption and say this is what applies to them in all zoning codes. So that's the approach we took. It seems like it's the most straightforward approach. And there's a companion application that was submitted here last week, two weeks ago now, to amend the comp plan to just – it's basically an ode to starter home subdivisions in our comprehensive plan that addresses it and says in residential districts throughout the city of Meridian, you may do starter home subdivisions. So it's nothing super fancy or elaborate, but it is code compliant in our opinion. So – I can run through it some more if you'd like, but essentially that's it. And I want to kind of give you some context too in this handout. So there's more than what's changing, but it gives you kind of the full picture of how the code kind of flows. Oh, I guess there was one other thing I wanted to point out. Staff is also proposing a new finding. And so if you, sorry there's no page numbers, but it's the second to last sheet of paper. It's the backside of that page, the second page of paper, backside. And this, I'm proposing that the findings be added to all subdivisions. So these are the subdivisions, may look familiar to you, A through F for all subdivisions. I would propose we add G. It allows you some discretion in subdivision to make a finding that the plot is compatible with surrounding neighborhoods, and that's straight out of legislation. So it does give you an opportunity to make that finding or not potentially to say this Starter Hope subdivision in this location, even though we have to allow them, does not meet this finding. So there is language again in the statute that allows – I don't want to say that out, but a finding you have to make that it is compatible with surrounding neighborhoods. That's straight out of the bill. But that wouldn't be just for starter home subdivisions. That would be for all subdivisions. So I think with that, I will take comments, feedback.

Mr. Mayor? I think I might tease this question a few weeks ago when we kind of bringing us up my my question would be when it comes with the limitations that we would have on setbacks and things like that with the starter home subdivisions. Is that only with these subdivision designations or would it apply to all of our residential. designations.

So Mr. Mayor, Councilman Taylor, if I'm understanding your question, well, let me answer how I understood your question. So again, in all residential zoning districts, we have to allow starter home subdivisions, but we aren't changing the standards for all lots in all zoning districts to allow starter home subdivisions, if that makes sense. So unless you come through our process as a starter home subdivision, you aren't entitled as a starter home subdivision and not eligible for this.

Yeah, Mr. Mayor, just to follow up on that while Caleb's coughing. Yes, that's what I meant. Like, you have to come through our process and you at the beginning of the process saying we want this is what we're seeking. And then that was sort of trigger these new UDC or these new rules that would come along with the starter home subdivisions. It wouldn't be applicable to any other residential, which is kind of what I was wondering. I think I was a month or two ago, whenever it was, I kind of brought it up and it was. We got to look at it, but we don't think so. But I think you answered my question.

I will share a little bit. You know, we've had some conversations of 90 some percent of our projects. If you know close to 100 anyways, we do a development agreement, right? And there's a concept plan. What happens if they go from that concept plan with an R4 zone and now want to do a starter home subdivision? We don't know how that would necessarily play out. So.

Mr Mayor, Council Chair.

That's kind of one of my questions. Like, I guess I'm curious. It feels like we still have discretion when it comes to the annexation decision. But my concern is once we annex in property at that point, like, let's just give an example. Let's say someone comes through and we annex in a subdivision with a plan for large lots. The neighbors are happy. It seems like it's a good fit. And then two weeks later, they come back and they say, you know what? We'd like a DA modification. We're going to build a starter home subdivision. Maybe this is a legal question, but like what, what ability do we have at that point to say, no, do we have a leg to stand on? Do we just have to approve it administratively? I just want to understand our legal interpretation at that point of what we would need to do.

I do think we have some discretion and that is some I do think we have some discretion and that is some of why this new finding I of why this new finding I would propose we add but even in would propose we add but even in the bill there are still some the bill there are still some things like here's. Public utilities right if our sewer Public utilities right if our sewer capacity is not there we can say capacity is not there we can say no as a city if we can't service no as a city if we can't service that as that dense of a subdivision. that as that dense of a subdivision. And we can't provide there's And we can't provide there's life safety issue we can To clear that bar is a pretty high bar. So you still do have some ability, but the intent certainly is to allow these more than deny them. But there are circumstances where we can say no.

Mr. Mayor. Mr. Mayor, members of the council, Council Member Schroeder. I mean, I think, yeah, that's a great question. And we talked about that in our internal group. And I, at least today, I would tell you, I don't see a court saying that this statute somehow circumvents a contractual relationship we've created with a property owner they've agreed to come into the city under these conditions we contractually agreed to them to do it that way and we're not obligated to change it just because they want to change something else and this doesn't really require us to do anything it requires us to allow it in code and allows it in our ordinances or comp plan but doesn't say contractually we have to agree to it whenever somebody wants it So I think we still have the absolute right to say, no, thanks. We like what we agreed to. We like the development we already have, and we're not willing to change it. And I don't think we don't have any case law that says we are obligated to change that. So I don't see that today.

Mr. Mayor.

Councilman Taylor.

Maybe a broader scoping question. I might want Dave to chime in. We have to amend our comp plan. Our comp plan is coming up on 9, 10 years old. I know we contemplated whether or not we wanted to pursue maybe some funding to look at the comp plan and kind of do that. Would it make sense to just amend the comp plan how we thought made sense, or would it make more sense strategically to take this moment and have the holistic view. And that way we're have a very involved process where we say, maybe these are some of the areas where it would make some sense with sewer capacity, utility, et cetera, to have these subdivisions, because that would help guide developers instead of them coming in and saying kind of scattershot where they want to see, we're going to kind of guide it where it makes the most sense. So I'm kind of curious, sort of a big picture question about timing on amending our comp plan for that and sort of a comp plan redo. Yeah.

Mr. Mayor, Councilman Taylor, and Council, it's a great question. I think in our minds when it comes to the back away from the legislative, the comp plan discussions that we've heard Council make comments about and looking at the comp plan and the length of time it's been in place and what are the changes we've seen. We've been targeting FY28 as kind of the next step into that to be able to have conversations with you all, with the community about what is it about the comp plan that we think we even want to touch? Is it just a light touch and redo some sections? Is it a full-blown effort? It aligns with the strategic plan as well for our tactics and timing, along with the things that we're currently working on that touch or impact the comp plan. I think that's why we were thinking 28 and not necessarily... diving right in now. Now you go to the legislative aspects where we have to touch the comp plan because of these bills. There's certainly a conversation that we could have about doing that. I do get a little hesitant about timing of doing a more robust effort in the comp plan just because of these legislative issues. because of the rush of time that would take to get into effect by February of 27, which the legislature has in their bills, and potentially us missing the other things we want to touch in that larger discussion, if that makes sense. We can certainly have the conversation. We're open to feedback on accelerating that or not. It does have an impact on staff and the things that are currently working on. So I think my opinion is approaching the legislative needs now with the comp plan amendments that we need to make under the legislative aspects is a good approach and then discuss with you all. What is it about the comp plan that we as a community want to undertake? how much of that, what elements and handling that separately. That's my current thought.

Mr. Mayor. Councilman Schooner. I'm really glad you suggested this, Councilmember Taylor, because it's a really interesting question. Like, could we satisfy the legislation by saying, we've done an analysis and based on our utilities, these are the areas that we support starter home subdivisions? Like, could we take that opposite approach of being proactive? Like, these are the areas where we can support it. Would that meet the intent? Like, would that meet the legislation's requirements? Or would that still get us into issues?

So, Mr. Mayor, we brainstormed that idea, too, in designating areas on the comp plan. What that wouldn't satisfy, though, is the portion of this that talks about in residential zoning districts. Comp plan doesn't have zoning. So back to the we've already annexed it and you're in the city already. Comp plan doesn't it doesn't apply. It doesn't matter anymore, essentially. So. We talked about that. Let's designate some spots on our comp plan that we can allow these. Also, maybe just piggyback if it's okay, a little bit of Dave's thought. I think we can do a lot of this work in-house, right, with public work staff, right? We need to know what the water master plan is and the sewer mass plan and the roads and all that infrastructure that would be needed to support this. And then where it's lacking, we can say, hey, if we made this a five-lane roadway and we made this line bigger for for sewer or whatever, we could accommodate this or know what we have in our current plans can only accommodate this density. So I don't want to go to the public necessarily right away without having a good understanding of where maybe we can allow some more starter home subdivisions and target them in our comprehensive plan and say, hey, this is a higher density area. than others. And if I can, just one more thing, just to not to be repetitive, but I didn't mention it here. I was going to say it as we transition to FlexSpace. We do need to make these changes by February 1st. going to the public and getting that feedback. And I'm really kind of dreading this because I can sense some of the feedback we're gonna get and I'm gonna have to say, sorry, but we're gonna do this anyways, you know? So that public feedback, at least with initial code compliance, I think this is the best path. And then we look at a bigger picture. Let's look at our infrastructure with some of our other partners like ACHD and ITD and other schools and say, Where should we be doing some more of these things? Where's the opportunity? And then take that out to the public and go, these are the areas we can accommodate these. Do they all make sense? Do some of them make sense? That's where I'd like some of that feedback, I guess.

Mr. Mayor. Councilor Schroeder.

At least as a decision maker, whether it's in the comp plan process or just outside of that, I do think having public works start some kind of an analysis of what this change could mean if it was fully implemented in different areas of the city would be really important. Because as we start to see requests come through, Like we need to have a grounded and like consistent analytical approach to approving or denying them. And I think there's a lot of work, unfortunately, that modeling, honestly, they need to do a lot of modeling of like what this would mean, how much we could support seeing this. I guess I would just encourage as much of that work to start as possible so we can get ahead of it.

Mr. Mayor. Yes. I was just going to say, we actually did work with Public Works and they mapped all the parcels that are four acres or more in Meridian just to kind of get an understanding how many parcels are even out there. Not that all of them would want to do a starter home subdivision, but where are these? I don't think they've gone to the extent of, okay, it's on this trunk and how much capacity on this trunk versus that one. But some of that's already started and I'll reiterate that with them. So thank you.

Yeah, I think that's the challenge is like, it's good for a moment until it's not good. You know, and that's the underlying issue. And even if we designate places in the future, someone else might eat that up and it shouldn't be designated. So it's Houdini.

Yes, Mr. Mayor, just to clarify, you know, some of that early work, Land within the city, at least don't quote me. I'm happy to share a map with you because we did look at that, but it's roughly 40 ish parcels, roughly 700 acres that are inside of annex city land today that would meet this four acres or more designation. So that gives you it's spread around the city as well. Happy to share a map with you, but gives you an initial stab into the mayor's point. I could change tomorrow, depending on which development comes in first. And again, on the comp plan conversation, happy to talk more about that. And timing wise, I think there's all of these competing interests in the comp plan and the timing of the legislative activity that needs to occur. I think giving it. It's rightful place and getting it established and then giving the comp plan conversations. It's due respect and efforts and how we want to roll that out to the community and what you all would like to see us touching in that effort as well. It feels like coming in, planning in 27 and executing, asking for funding if needed in 28, somewhere in that time range.

I think that's probably good feedback to take away here in some ways I think it's probably a conversation we ought to have you know maybe as after we get out of the budget discussions just to kind of let you present some information let us kind of chew on it because it is a you know it's there's a lot of planning that goes into it and I think not rushing it but having a thoughtful approach that makes sense I think I'd encourage us to have that discussion sometime maybe late summer or fall. And this was always out for. Comp plan, like sort of the bigger picture, comp plan discussion, like what makes sense, a big, big, massive relook tweaks.

I mean, so that this level of the comp plan, not necessarily whether or not we should do it before February.

Yes, correct. Yeah. Clarification. I understand we have to do some things prior to the deadline. This is more of a bigger picture, holistic look at timing of when we may want to do that.

Thanks. Okay, those are the easy ones. And now we're on to, I have no idea what we want to do. No, FlexSpace. So you guys actually, you did take an action a couple weeks ago. Maybe that was just last week, the 16th, last week. And so that will, that ordinance is working its way through and we will adopt that as you all approved. I wanted to maybe just step back a little bit though, and we've talked about this several times now over the last handful of years, excuse me, and give you a little bit of the history on flex space. Not all of it, but I think back when we included this in our unified development code, there was an intent to protect industrial, but also allow some non-industrial type functions within those buildings for that tenant. Calling out specifically, you can have some retail, you can have a showroom, you can have some office within there. You don't have to be 100% distribution or warehouse, right? So another intended effect of allowing some quasi-industrial users in commercial zones. So even promoting some industrial uses outside of the industrial zone. So in the CG zone, maybe having some buildings that allow different uses there. Over the last couple of years, again, we've tweaked the specific use standards, those percentages quite a bit, a couple of times even, and had conversations through different hearings. Recent history, again, what was approved on the 16th, that ordinance is forthcoming, but the section of code that that addressed didn't address all the aspects of flex space. So there's really kind of three sections of flex that go together, and that's the specific use standards, which, again, you're familiar with. It talks about 10 to 30 percent of these types of uses for flex use. The schedule of use, so the tables, which zones can I do flex? flex space in. So commercial zones, industrial zones, office zones, that's the schedule of use controller, the tables. And then again, the definition. And that's where I kind of wanted to start even right now is just to read to you the definition real quick of what flex space is. And I think there's some room for improvement there. Sorry, I just lost them to pull it up real quick here. So flex space, the use of a building or portion thereof for small scale warehousing and or light industry with associated office and or retail showroom space, period. Flexibility and use of the interior space and low scale space. attractive exterior appearances characterize flex buildings i think this is where we get off on the wrong foot is everyone has their own definition of what flex space is and staff can't even agree what this means what low scale is what attractive is what you know So that's, I think, one thing that we need to work on is what is flex space. And we've heard from some feedback already. So I think some of the flexibility that you guys have talked about is a good thing. The market influence and those types of things, we get that. I think we're going to have to, again, kind of tighten this definition down a little bit, though, as we also look at the schedule of use and the specific use standards. Okay. So again, staff can't even agree. Is this a multi-tenant building? Is it total flexibility for any user that wants to go in there? If we have a roll-up door, does that make a flex building? So everyone sort of has their own vision of what a flex building is, and we need to really get on the same page with this. So we miss each other on what flex is. And again, we understand that you want to be more flexible. And I think we're making some strides there. Schedule of use. So that's again the zones that are allowed. And just in the interest of time, I'm going to go through that pretty quickly. But again, the twofold concern that we have is allowing more industrial type of buildings and commercial zones. And this just isn't the potential look or the unattractiveness of an industrial building. But the uses themselves and the conflicting uses potentially even within the same building, right? So a lot of these industrial buildings have forklifts or triple trailers or things. And now if we allow a daycare to go in there or something else, there's an inherent conflict in some of these uses. So a line should be drawn somewhere, at least in staff's opinion, that. There's a separation of use. That's what our zoning code is based on. I'll touch on this in a minute. There's other cities throughout the nation, even in Idaho, that use a form-based code. It's performance standards. It's not about the use. It doesn't matter what you call yourself as long as you build the building to this line and this tall and put these windows on it. We don't care what you do inside. But industrial, when there's roll-up doors and docks and those types of things, and also just say it can be – more of a nuisance even, like the parking requirements in industrial are less. We require a quarter of the parking in industrial areas. So then when you get those taken over by churches and Pilates studios and these other uses that do have a higher frequency of customers, they're under parked. And so it is this balance of, at least if we're going to keep with our current model of having Euclidean zoning, Some of that separation, you know, we have mixed use areas, but we don't allow industrial in those, right? So mixed use more with the commercial and residential. So again, I think this just goes to show some of the definition and the schedule of use and where we want to allow these uses, protecting industrial, also allowing it in some commercial zones, but with some caveats.

So Kayla, while you take a drink of water, I'll give you a basic question just specifically Since you brought up other communities, what other communities in our area have flex space, have a similar or different definition, and or have a percentage based in their flex space? That to me, we don't have to do it with the Joneses. I think it's important to understand what the Joneses are doing so that we know, are we on an island in what we're doing here? Or sometimes when you're on an island, you're leading. But where are we?

Good question, Mayor. And I was going to, again, kind of talk about this when we get the solutions and options and what others are doing. So typically, right, wrong, different, but it's three that I can kind of compare ourselves to. Excuse me. We're getting these types of things. Boise, Nampa and Eagle. I mean those are kind of my litmus tests for these types of things. What are they doing? At least a starting point to see what they're doing. Boise does not have flex. They don't address flex in residential actually. They do, but they don't have it for commercial or industrial use. So they don't have any – flex space doesn't exist in their ordinance. NAMP as it does, but only in definition. They have a definition of a flex space building. But again, they use form-based code. So that doesn't really mean anything. It just defines that it's a flexible building for space. Form-based code, it says it's performance standard. So it has to be at least two or three stories tall, depending on what zone you're in. And there are some – Other requirements, parking and those types of things, but it doesn't actually have a schedule of use control like the City of Marin does. Eagle does, and they're the closest that we have where they have parking requirements for flex buildings. But their parking requirements, just as an example, are 1 per 500, which is more like our commercial standard than our industrial standard that's at 1 per 2,000. You just approved last week. Well, it's on the books now. One per thousand is our current flex space standard. But Eagle has flex. And again, they're most similar to our code. And we're somewhere in the middle with how we treat them in their schedule of use. They do allow it as principally permitted in their C1, their C2. Sorry, their C3, their CBD, their M1 and their BP zoning districts. So don't ask me what all those mean, but they do have principally permitted flex space as a use in the city of Eagle. So it's kind of all over the place, and those three that we most typically use, three flavors of ice cream.

And do they have a percentage of the building? Is that in any of the components?

Maybe I'll double back after kind of get through some other things, and I'll see if –

I thought I heard they didn't, that we were the only ones that had a percentage listed in that context, but I didn't know if that was fact or fiction.

And again, that's something I think that we'd want another crack at, even though you just approved 10 to 30%, depending on the zoning district. I think we've had another one where it talks about a maximum. What happens if we have 51% commercial on this? Can we still be a flex building? So everyone wants flex.

Everyone wants flexibility.

Yes, and we want to as well, but there needs to be some sideboards at some point. Again, professional office in a flex building, something like that is not flexed by our current definitions or anything like that. So again, I'll speed this along. I think here's just some quick summaries of what we see as options. We could require CUPs for these, and you know it when you see it. Right, we could say planning zoning commission or city council, they wanna call themselves a flex user, flex building, what do you think? I mean, you're gonna punt it rather than messing with, you know, a lot of the definition. You just say, you wanna do a flex building, get a CUP. Don't love it, but just an option. We could kill flex altogether, right? We can just, it's not an industry standard that you have a flex use in your schedule of use control or allow flex buildings necessarily. Could get rid of it. Again, not in favor of that, just saying it's an option. It'll create other issues. I'm not proposing that. The third one is really what we're more proposing is to work with our UDC focus group to fix the definitions, schedule use, and those specific standards some more. But I want some more feedback. We've gotten some notes, again, from the past few years where we've had these conversations. But if there's any other flexible, but what are those, how can we better define that so we aren't getting daycares next to fertilizer plants next to FedEx? We can't have all that flexibility because we can't realistically – and again, this is something that tracking those tenants over time and managing that building is flex and saying, well, you can be the office component and someone over here is the warehousing. What happens when the warehouser moves out and now they don't meet the 30%? They're the 100% because it's vacant over there. We kick them out too because now it's not a flex space. it just adds some challenges when we don't sort of look at how we, you know, the expectation of staff to manage this too and what tenants are going in there. So anyways, I'll stop, pause, look and see what Eagle has for percentages and take other feedback.

That's what Taylor.

So this is an intriguing discussion to me, which is strange in some regards. I actually asked myself the question, by trying to define what flex space is, are we killing flex space? Like, how do you define it? And as I view it, and we've had examples come before us, I think, in some of these applications, there's types of uses and configurations and layouts and needs that we can't anticipate. And when we try to define it, we inadvertently create problems that we didn't anticipate. I think as a city, a higher level of philosophy should be how do we allow the greatest amount of ability for people to start a business, run a business, have some kind of enterprise that works really well here. We don't want to drive them to other municipalities. We don't want to become an obstacle to them doing something that is economically advantageous for them, provides benefit to the city. So what I don't want to do is create... barriers to entry barriers to growth things that are not intended to be harmful to someone starting a a business but which may we may inadvertently be doing that by trying to define what it is by be by coming up with a schedule of uses i'm i kind of wonder if you are just we don't even have flex space in the code then how do you does that allow people to to have different types of uses in these buildings, kind of this form-based zoning that you talked about. I don't know if that's the right answer, but to me, this particular type of a topic, I feel like less is more when trying to get what I think we want as a city, which is We want diversity in our economic baseline. We don't want just some retail, hospital, a few office space. We want a variety of economic activity. The way to do that is to stop trying to control it by creating some rules. Again, I'm just sort of speaking what I feel like philosophically makes a lot of sense to me. I understand, though, that if I was a certain user type, there's other neighbors I would not want to have or that wouldn't make sense to be safe. Like, I wouldn't want to run a daycare and next door is a FedEx, lots of big heavy truck. I get that. So I understand there's some need for that. But I think philosophically, I'm going to push back on any desire to... Really try to define it closely or put a lot of controls around it, because I just think that's actually the opposite of what we want in terms of that we're entering a new sort of a new economy where we can't even anticipate the types of uses. Three years from now, what's it going to look like? I don't know. I think we need to try to be forward thinking to encourage people that come here and say Meridian is a great place to go because. There's a lot of flexibility. That's just kind of my initial gut reaction as I contemplated. I think what we've seen is we do need to get it all kind of figured out. We've had some confusion. We didn't mean to do that, but people have come and said, hey, we've got these great ideas. There's things we want to do. Here's what the market's telling us, but we can't do it in your city because of this. So I think we do need to address it. But I mean, I'm just kind of wondering if we don't even address the issue at all, if that gives us the flexibility we want. I don't know.

Mr. Mayor. Councilman Robertson. So to kind of tag along on what Councilman Taylor just said, I mean, we've, again, we've discussed this several times. And I think the problem is we're trying to hit a moving target. We get these requests from businesses and when we wrote our ordinances, our rules, UDC on FlexSpace, that's how business was being done at that time. but it keeps changing. And the customers that they're seeing out there keep changing and what their needs and wants and desires are. And I keep, the way I look at it, I think if we keep trying to move the percentages of what we want to see flex space, we're going to constantly be doing this dance again and again and again as those demands change. And I'm not sure that getting rid of that flex space requirement is not the right decision, and then regulating the uses in a different manner than flex space altogether. So we can keep the daycares away from the FedEx and the forklifts, but allow a lot more flexibility in those uses. Because I think we're going to always be trying to play catch up what the business needs are as the economies change, processes change, technologies advance beyond what we know today.

i thought mr mayor um i think i think from for your solutions some feedback like cups i i don't think we want to go that route because we're picking winners and losers and i think we don't want that i don't want to kill flex space because i feel like it's an innovative property type it gives people an ability to build things they wouldn't otherwise be able to do um i think maybe where we need to go with it instead of trying to regulate like this percentage of office or this percentage of that, maybe where we need to go with it is just to really sit down and have a really good understanding of what truly incompatible uses are and to prohibit those. So like top of mind, the daycare one is a great example. Heavy, heavy industrial is very different than light industrial, completely different ballgame environmentally in terms of health impacts to the neighbors. I think if we put ourselves in that mindset of like, I don't want to dictate anymore, you need this percentage, that percentage, whether something is a little bit commercial or a little bit industrial, I'm not sure I care that much. I think I care more about like truly incompatible uses being next to each other. Maybe, you know, I think your third option is kind of where it needs to go, but maybe with more of a focus, instead of being prescriptive, giving as much flexibility between light industrial and commercial as we can, but just identifying these are the uses that just don't work. that we don't want to see. Maybe something like that would work better for us. I don't know. It's a really tough, it's a tough one. We keep trying to build a mass trap and it is really hard, but I don't want to kill the innovation. I think people like really appreciate having the flexibility of that approach. Just like there are just some uses though that just don't work. And that would be hard though. We're putting ourselves in a position where If unbeknownst to us, a new tenant moves in and it's one of those truly incompatible uses and we catch wind of it, like how do we deal with it? But maybe that's an easier, cleaner way. I don't know.

Mr. Mayor.

Councilman Roberts.

Mr. Mayor, having been multiple business owner, and it just seems like our businesses have changed so many times, and Amazon created so many home-based businesses that have outgrown their garage, and look for flex space. And I've talked to several people, and we even had one at one point, that all we were doing was repackaging flex. but we needed something that was five times the size of our garage to do it in but we didn't need any like retail nobody was going to come by and pick one up we didn't need a showroom and so i think the more flexible that we can be the more opportunity we have to meet the needs of our citizens as small home businesses are growing and growing these days mr mayor that's been a lot and kind of along those lines i just i don't know how you shoehorn all of this in to find the right package

whether it's roll-up doors, 10%, 30%, or is creation of jobs a factor that we can... Can that be a barometer of what we approve and what we don't approve? Or are we fine with just storing a bunch of stuff next to a daycare? As I've listened to some of the comments of people who've come before us, you know, they have focused on here are the number of jobs that we're creating. Here's the space that we need in order to help the economy of Meridian move forward. So I'm not sure how we weave that in, but if we're shoehorning roll-up doors and percentages, I'd like jobs to be part of that consideration.

In just my two cents, I'm all about no percentages. Uses, conversations, plus, minus, good, bad, but nobody wins on percentages in this conversation.

So Mr. Mayor, that's a great segue back to your question. And Mr. Parsons was very helpful and looked up EGLE's definition. So they don't have a percentage requirement in their flex space. They do limit those to 30,000 square foot buildings, though. So again, ours says small scale. We don't put a size on that. 100,000 square foot buildings have been flexed in the past. We don't have any way to say that's too big or too small. But that's what EGLE does is they say 30,000. And within their definition, There was a laundry list. I didn't read them all, but there's like 25 sample uses of what can go in there. Based on this discussion, I'm kind of thinking going the other way. We'll not define what it is, but we'll define what it isn't. So maybe there's a few uses where we say you can't be this and you can't be that, but everything else, sure. I don't know if that's going to work or not, but I hear what you all are saying, and instead of defining it, let's define what it isn't. And maybe we can get there. But that's what Eagle does is they have – again, they cap the – if you want to be a flex building, it can only be this big, and here's the uses that can go in it.

Mayor. I kind of a comment. I think this is the right direction to be going. And I think council administrators comment about defining incompatible uses is probably a better, easier way to go about it. So then that we're not inadvertently creating barriers that we don't anticipate, you know, within a building, you know, two or three uses that are compatible. Like you can do that, but I think it's easier to say, these are the things from a health and safety point of view, are incompatible. We're not going to do that. But it's hard to anticipate, well, what's compatible to some users? That's a hard thing to define. But it's easy for us to say, these things should not be together. Anybody knows that that doesn't make sense. So I think that's a good direction to go. And if it is the UDC focus group that helps us have that conversation, I think that makes a lot of sense. It's going to be a lot easier for us to do that, and it's going to have lasting impact to Councilman Overton's comment. We're not going to be back here in 18 months because someone brought an application that we're like, oh, geez, now what do we do? This is going to have something that I think will be lasting and provide some certainty.

Okay.

We'll be back. Thank you. Perfect. Thank you. Good luck with all that stuff. And, yes, we'll be seeing that all back here one way or the other over the next seven months. Yeah. Thanks.

Okay. With that, I'm 24. Mr. Mayor. Mr. Overton. I move that we go into executive session prior to code 74-206A, subsection 1A.

I have a motion and a second to go into executive session. Is there any discussion? If not, all in favor? If not, call the roll.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Taylor?

Aye. Strater?

Whitlock? Aye. Little-Roberts? Aye. Overton?

Aye. All ayes, motion carries, and we'll go into executive session.

Yeah. Great. Amen. Bye. Thank you. Thank you. What is it? Thank you. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Councilman Overton. Mr. Mayor, I move that we come out of executive session.

Second.

I have a motion and a second to come out of executive session. All in favor signify by saying aye.

Aye.

Opposed nay. The ayes have it. We are out of executive session.

Mr. Mayor. Councilman Overton. I move that we adjourn the workshop.

Second.

Motion and a second to adjourn. All those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed nay. The ayes have it. We are adjourned. Just wait for Councilman Taylor to get in before we start the next meeting.

I need it to run down. Thanks.

It's going to be ready. We're ready to smear.

Council will call the meeting order for the record, June 23rd, 2026 at 6. 11 p.m. will begin tonight's registered accounts being with roll call tenants in the smear councilman governor is not here.

Councilman Taylor, Councilman straighter, Councilman Whitlock, Councilman Little Roberts, Councilman Overton, Mayor Simpson.

Here. Next time up is the Pledge of Allegiance. If you'd all please rise and join us in the pledge. We had no one sign up for the community invocation, so I'll move on to adoption of the agenda.

Mr. Mayor. Councilman Overton. There are no changes to tonight's agenda. I move that we approve the agenda as published. Second.

I have a motion and a second to approve the agenda. All in favor signify by saying aye.

Aye.

Those opposed nay. The ayes have it and the agendas agree to. Next up, we're going to do a proclamation for Hawaii High School Softball State Champions Day. If I could have the coach and the team come up and join behind the podium, we'll do the proclamation.

Thank you.

Well, Council, as we did at our 430, we're going to celebrate Owyhee High School once again, as we did the baseball team earlier. So it's great that we could do this all in one day. Sorry, I only had to wear the red tie once this week. So with that, we'll do a proclamation, then we'll invite Coach to say a few words if you'd like to, and the players introduce themselves, their year, and their position. Sound good?

Sweet.

All right.

Great.

So whereas being a Waihee High School softball player is more than making, pitching, fielding, hitting, and achieving state titles, it is training to build leadership, character, confidence, teamwork, and resilience. All traits needed to succeed on the field, in the classroom, and in the real world. And whereas the Storm were the team to beat in the 2026 season with a 31-3 overall record and a 6-1 state tournament record to advance to the six-day state championship game. And whereas after an early tournament loss, Hawaii fought back through the elimination bracket to claim the trophy. And whereas Owyhee won five straight elimination games, including a 12-5 victory in the title match to provide a second straight title and the third in four years for the team. And whereas the leadership, training, discipline of their coaches helped all team members to focus their talents and passion to become a winning team, with each player making valuable contributions to their victory. Therefore, I, Mayor Robert E. Simpson, hereby proclaim June 23rd, 2026 is Hawaii High School Softball State Champions Day, and the City of Meridian call upon the community to join me in congratulating the Storm on their remarkable athletic achievement and for representing Meridian so proudly in the state tournament this 23rd day of June, 2026. So on behalf of myself, the City Council, all the employees in the community, congratulations on your accomplishment, and we're glad that you can be here to celebrate with us.

Thank you. Coach? Well, I'm going to keep it short and sweet. We thank all the city council, the city of Meridian, and on behalf of Owyhee High School, we'd love to accept this award. And it's honestly, the girls had a great year. They put themselves and the coaches and all the parents just on a pedestal by their play. Super selfless, put the team before themselves. Just great, great year. Um, coach John isn't here. Um, but I know he did have one message for everybody. He just said, just go ahead and pencil us in for next year. So we were here last year. We'll be back next year. So we'll just keep, we'll just keep coming back and, uh, throwing our names up here. So we'll start with sailor. She can introduce herself. Um, she's a senior graduate. So, and one of our captains, so she can introduce herself and, uh, maybe what position you played and what was the other thing you wanted that position here? Perfect. Okay.

I'm Sailor Shoemaker. I'm a senior, and I play outfield. My name is Madeline Mahaffey. I'm a sophomore. I play first base. My name's Charlotte.

I'm a sophomore, and I play outfield.

I'm Kenzie Leathers. I'm a freshman, and I'm a pitcher. I'm Aniston Kelly. I'm a freshman, and I play shortstop.

I'm Jules D'Antonio. I'm a freshman, and I play middle infield.

I'm Danny McGrath. I'm the JV assistant coach. And this is my daughter, Audrey, who is the bat girl for the varsity team.

Oh, thank you. Okay.

And I will just say real quick, because I don't think we're going to get them on the schedule, but Mountain View was also successful in the spring with once again back-to-back for the men and women in their track titles. So we had a very successful spring in Meridian with two returning back-to-back groups through that process. But yes. So with that... council dinner, and now I guess that was my now supposed to recognition council anything else that are now supposed to recognition. Okay, Mr can we send up under public forum.

Mr yes Denise live here.

Good evening, Denise if you state your I guess we don't even address for the record we're just your name, for the record.

Good evening, Mayor and city council members. I'm Denise Lefevre. And for those that don't know, I won my Idaho precinct committee for 1412 and I'm here to discuss some very specific things that came up reoccurring during my walks. Okay. One of the issues that came up as a reoccurring thing is a need for ordinance for electric bikes and golf carts. In particular, residents have expressed growing concerns with operations of electric bikes and golf carts. Reports miners riding these recklessly down the middle of the lanes, traveling excessive speeds, performing stunts on the roads, one wheelies, cutting corners, failing to yield to pedestrians. And in addition, they're causing damage to landscaping. Another issue we have is some people have reported excessive vehicle noise. I don't know what people are doing to their vehicles nowadays, but for some reason they're extremely loud after 10 o'clock at night. And you guys have probably heard this 100 times. There is issues with the Rock Harbor traffic impact. with large events and Sundays making it hard for residents to get out of their neighborhoods. There's traffic delays, neighborhood access issues, safety issues, and it causes issues with the surrounding neighborhoods as well. We've also had some issues with people talking about dogs off leash. While many of our pet owners are responsible, there are some that create safety concerns with other dogs, pedestrians, children, cyclists, and just overall nuisance. One of the really big issues has been the Black Cat Road at Chinden. With not having a right-hand turnout, it's causing a really dangerous situation. Some people reported that They've been very concerned and turn into the tree farm way to go into their neighborhoods because they feel it's too dangerous to turn on black cat because there's no right hand turn lane. One of the other issues that's been top of mind since its 250 year anniversary is the fireworks and in the past there people love these celebrations and we welcome celebrations however there's concerns that these fireworks go on for multiple days and really late into the night and they would like a conversation around how to curtail multiple days and late at night especially concerning dry conditions people trying to get sleep and pet anxiety that is something i hear over and over again is pet anxiety. When they went back through and they chip sealed our neighborhood, they did not repaint the crosswalks. We would like our crosswalks repainted. The utility box was replaced up on Chinden and Tree Farm. It used to have a really pretty wrap that went around it. We would like that pretty wrap put back again, if not the same one, a different one. And then the last one, we would like your help Okay, Mayor, we would like your help in getting that fence removed between Chinden, it's on Chinden where the golf course is, between Lakeshore and Tree Farm over by Fast Eddie's. We know that that's on Ada County land, but we would like you to make some phone calls because it's impacting our residents. As windstorms come up, those materials blow out into the lane people get into to turn into the neighborhood off of Chinden. So we would like an encouragement from the sheriffs or compliance and Ada County to have that resolved. And that is my report. Those are, those are the very specific things and I'll come forward and talk about other issues later, but those are the ones that we would like to see if we can get some help with. Okay.

Thank you, Denise. Our police chief was here tonight and heard them all, and almost every one of those falls directly into his team's conversation.

Fantastic.

I'm sure that he or a member's team can reach out and have some conversations about some of them, and some of them you're going to hear some good news about.

I'm waiting for that electric bike one.

Okay.

All right. Fantastic. Thank you.

Thanks. Mayor Mrakas, Okay, with that nice and there's nobody else to sign up okay with that we'll move on to our public hearings for this evening per se item ups public hearing for program year 2026 Community development block grant action plan will open this public hearing was comments from crystal.

Thank you, Mr Mayor Mayor members of the Council, and I have a quick presentation for you before we opened for the public hearing. So quick overview, CDBG is the Community Development Block Grant, and it's federal funding that we receive from HUD every year, and it's specifically to help low to moderate income residents with housing stability. We have a five-year plan. It's called our consolidated plan. We use this to figure out what the goals and priorities of the community are. And then each year we submit our action plan and that says how we're going to spend the funding. So it's a quick reminder that the funding is limited to eligible activities and that's determined by HUD. For this year, it's the final year of our consolidated plan, and we are expecting to receive $555,314 for this. And this slide shows a breakdown of how we are intending to spend those funds. Under services, we are looking at funding Jesse Tree's Emergency Rental Assistance Program. For childcare scholarships, that's the Boys and Girls Club. We also have two different repair programs. One is the larger one through NeighborWorks Boise that we typically do. And then Habitat for Humanity also requested funding for a critical home repair program that focuses more on veterans and citizens who have disabilities. And that's more for like ramps and smaller projects. We also have funding to finish up the Northwest 7th Walkability Project. We are under contract right now, so we're hoping to start that in September and then just roll right into the remainder of the improvements once we get the additional funding. And then, of course, administration, program oversight, and fair housing, which is a required activity. We've done quite a bit of community engagement during the planning process. We had a public hearing council presentation. We engaged our community partners. We had an application open for people to apply for the funds to administer different programs. And then we also had a grant workshop so people could learn more about it. As far as public comments, once the action plan was completed and was put out, then, of course, we have the public comment period. We have an online survey, a couple of virtual open houses, two public hearings. It's available on our website. It's been posted to social media. And we've also sent letters to neighbors that are impacted by the Northwest Seventh Walkability Project. For the most part, the feedback that we've been receiving, there's strong support for rental assistance during emergencies, childcare for working families, home repair for seniors and people with disabilities, as well as the sidewalk improvements for neighborhood safety. And in the comments, they have also mentioned that there's interest in affordable housing, transportation, accessibility, and long-term housing solutions. You guys will get a full list of all the comments though when the plan is submitted. Also, things that were brought up for future discussion, there were comments around eligibility for assistance, how funding decisions are made, eligible uses, program oversight and accountability, and opportunities for community involvement. So all of those things will continue providing public education, and we'll also be discussing that quite a bit when we go out for our consolidated plan process. Here is just a quick summary of the feedback that we've received as of this afternoon. For the most part, people are fairly good with it. It's all over the place on some of them, but for the most part, it's right around 3.5 to 4%. 4.2, where it averages out as far as meeting the current needs and having a lasting effect, then it's 3.8 and 3.5. The child care scholarships and home repair programs are both 3.8 on average, and emergency rental assistance is 3.9 with the walkability at 4.2. So moving forward after tonight, then the public comment closes on June 29, which is next week. And then in the middle of July, I will have the final report and resolution on the consent agenda for your approval. And then by the end of the month, I'll have it submitted to HUD. And as soon as that's over, then we'll start on our consolidated planning process. If anybody has any questions or comments they can reach out to me directly, even outside of the public comment period, we always take feedback. My name is crystal Campbell my email is see Campbell at meridian city.org and my phone number is 208-489-0575 and with that i'll stand for questions.

Thank you crystal Council any questions. Okay, I appreciate that. One question, Chris, do you want the public hearing left open while you take public comment or not necessarily?

No, we can close the public comment period.

Okay.

Or sorry, we can close the public hearing.

Okay, thank you. Appreciate it. Mr. Clerk, we have anybody sign up to provide testimony on this item?

Mr. Mayor, we did not. Okay.

Is there anybody present who would like to provide testimony on this item? And if you're online, you can use your raise your hand feature. Seeing no one coming forward and no one raising their hand.

Mr. Mayor.

Councilman Overton.

I move that we close the public hearing for the program year 2026 Community Development Block Action Plan.

Second.

I have a motion second to close the public hearing.

Is there any discussion? If not, all in favor signify by saying aye.

Aye.

Opposed nay. The ayes have it and the public hearing is closed. Thank you very much. Next item up on the agenda is item 3 with public hearing continued from June 9th for Apex Zenith H2026-0014. We will continue this public hearing with staff comments from Nick.

Good evening, Mayor, members of the Council. Next item on the agenda is the development agreement modification for Apex Zenith. So the applicant requests to amend the existing development agreement to modify the phasing of roadfront landscape improvements. The site is generally located at the southeast corner of Meridian Road and Lake Hazel. So the applicant's narrative states that the main reason behind this request is to avoid installing and potentially damaging or removing landscaping with future construction of phase two of Apex Zenith. In addition, these landscape improvements are tied to the first certificate of occupancy within the development, which would be COSCO. The reason these landscape improvements or landscape buffer and improvements were required with phase one of the development was due to the applicant constructing roads outside of the subdivision process, which did not provide a mechanism for staff to allow the phasing of these improvements. And anything in green, this is what's in currently in the DA, anything in green and orange was required prior to the occupancy of Costco. The blue was deferred to phase two, and now they're coming back and wanting to be able to post, have the opportunity to post surety. in order to get occupancy of Costco if some of those improvements are not finished at that time. So as a result, staff has provided the option for a performance jury to be posted for the deferred landscape improvement. This requirement ensures that the city has a mechanism to require completion of the improvements in the future, regardless of timing of subsequent preliminary and final plats. So I would like to note that in my staff report, it said the applicant had not submitted the preliminary plat for phase two. However, that preliminary plat has been submitted with a larger application that also includes a development agreement modification. So on the screen is the proposed language change. It essentially just allows them to be able to post surety if the landscaping is not installed along those street frontages, and Costco will be able to get occupancy if that surety is posted prior.

And I'll stand for any questions.

Thank you. Council, any questions for staff?

Mr. Mayor, is there agreement upon, is there agreement on the amount of the surety and alignment on that?

Mr. Mayor, Councilman Strader, so we're actually going to, the amount of the surety is not yet because we have to receive bids for the surety amount, which I will coordinate with Kelly Reddy, our surety coordinator, with Brighton as well, prior to the occupancy of Costco. I know they're currently working out there pretty hard. I'll let the applicant speak to that a little bit more, but I know that there's a lot of work being done. And they aren't sure exactly what may not be completed if my understanding is correct. So that number may change I know that I'll be coordinating with them closely as this continues To make sure those sureties are in place and the correct bids and amounts are in place prior to the occupancy of Costco That's correct Counseling additional questions for staff Okay with the applicant like to come forward

Amanda McNutt, 2929 West Navigator. Did it start sharing?

It did not. We had to turn the other share off.

Okay, looks like we're good. Probably questions will be more helpful on this than my presentation, but we'll go ahead and get started. So again we're modifying the development agreement for Apex Zenith. As mentioned, this is the corner of Lake Hazel and Meridian Road. Um, this was an exhibit already shown, but I think this is just a little bit more clear. Um, we had agreed to do basically all of the buffers in this area prior to the first occupancy as noted, that would be Costco other than phase three, which was with a future final plot, which has now been, um, or the new plot has been submitted. Just to give you kind of an update of where we're at building wise out here in green, everything is complete. Blue, we're prepping for asphalt and have an estimated completion date of July 8. So that's coming up really quickly. And then Meridian Road is also under construction with a mid October date. That one's the most work. And so that could change just a little bit, but we should be on schedule for that. So this is kind of what we thought of for phasing our landscape completion. Phase one will be completed and bonded with Apex Zenith final plat number one, which has already been submitted and approved. Phase two would be completed or bonded with Costco. So that's kind of their fuel center and their main distribution and everything. So they would be responsible for that. And then phases or I guess numbers three through seven would be the future phasing of the landscaping. And so essentially, this is kind of how we plan to proceed to get landscaping to 100%. Because there will be new buildings that come in through there, there is still some road work that needs to happen. There's just going to be a lot of construction activity and things like that. We don't want to fully construct those buffers. We do plan to do all of the street trees and the landscaping between the curb and the sidewalk. which I believe is an eight foot landscape strip. But there's like another two foot of landscape behind the sidewalk that we do not want to complete at this time because it will likely get destroyed during construction of activities of other things. So those are the items that we'll likely be bonding for. Much of this landscaping is in or will be in very soon or this summer. So we don't actually expect to be bonding for that much. It's really just the stuff that we know is going to end up being problematic to install now and we'll just have to reinstall it later. And with that I will stand for any questions.

Thank you counseling questions.

That's been over 10 is to quick when Amanda so we're not really saying hey we're changing all the landscaping we're just changing the plan on when it's going to happen based upon construction.

Yes, that's correct. We're not changing what is happening with the landscape, just the timing of when it will be installed and the ability to actually bond for those improvements rather than install them all at the beginning. Thank you. You're welcome.

Thank you. Mr. Clerk, anyone else have to provide testimony on this item?

Mr. Mayor, no.

Is there anybody present that would like to provide testimony in this, either in the room or online? You can use raise your hand feature. Seeing no one coming forward and no one raising their hand, does the applicant waive any final comments?

Okay.

Applicant waives their comments?

Mr. Mayor. Councilman Overton. If there's no other comments on this application, I move we close the public hearing.

Second.

I have a motion and a second to close the public hearing. All in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed, nay. The ayes have it, and the public hearing is closed. Mr. Mayor.

Councilman Overton. This is pretty straightforward. We're not asking for a huge change, just a timing change. And with that, I'd like to move that we approve file number H2026-0014 as presented in the staff report for the hearing date of June 23rd, 2026, after considering all staff, applicant, and public testimony.

Second.

I have a motion and a second to approve item three. Is there discussion on the motion? If not, call the roll.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Taylor?

Aye. Strater?

Aye.

Whitlock?

Aye. Little-Roberts? Aye. Overton?

Aye. All ayes. Motion carried. The item is agreed to. With that, we'll move on to item four, which is public hearing for Pollard West, H-2026-0015. We'll open this public hearing with staff comments.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor, members of the Council. The next application before you is a request for a development agreement modification. This site consists of 23.3 acres of land, its own CG, and is located on the north side of West Chittenden Boulevard at the southwest corner of North Levi Avenue and Chittenden Boulevard. a little history on this property back in 2019 this property received annexation and preliminary plat approval as part of the larger 77 acre pollard subdivision a development agreement was required as a provision of annexation that governs future development of the property a conceptual development plan was approved at that time for the overall development and that is as shown there on the left a final plat was later approved and recorded which included the subject property The comprehensive plan feature land use map designation is mixed use interchange, which consists of 17.7 acres and medium density residential, which is 5.6 acres along the northern boundary of the property. As you can see on the map here on the right, that's the differences in the designations. The applicant is proposing a modification to the existing development agreement for a new agreement for the subject property, and that is for lots 1 through 7, block 2, Pollard subdivision number 1, to update the conceptual development plan for the portion of the property south of Waverton, west of Levi, and north of Chinden. An earlier amendment in 2024 removed the portion along the north side of Waverton from the agreement. The existing development agreement will remain in effect for the portion of the development east of North Levi Avenue. The existing approved conceptual development plan, as is shown, which depicts a medical campus consisting of 95,000 square feet of medical office building, including a surgical center, freestanding emergency department, and a 50-bed hospital. A multi-tenant building was anticipated at the hard corner of Levi and Chinden. Three of the lots have already received certificate of zoning compliance approval for the following uses. an 80,600-square-foot medical office building on Lot 3, and that is this one right here, an electrical wholesale supply company on Lot 2, that's right in there, and a credit union on Lot 1, and that's right at the corner there. These are all in the development process currently. A conditional use permit for a daycare center has been submitted for Lot 4, And that is this lot right here. Approval of that application is contingent upon the subject modification being approved tonight. The purpose of the modification is to update the conceptual development plan to accurately reflect current development activity and to allow for independent progression of the identified lots. The site layouts with access, parking, pedestrian pathways, and public quasi-public gathering areas and plazas that have already been approved are depicted on the proposed concept plan as shown. Lock six is still anticipated to develop with the hospital, and that's the far west one. And lot five is anticipated to have two commercial buildings. And that's the one here along the southern boundary. Because this property is located in the mixed-use interchange designation, specific development agreement provisions are required, as noted in the existing development agreement, that pertain to common usable open space in commercial areas such as plazas or green space, supportive and proportional public and quasi-public spaces and places, and safe pedestrian access and connectivity within developments as set forth in the comprehensive plan. The existing entitled uses were held to these standards and staff recommends the remaining lots are also held to these standards. Therefore, staff is recommending these provisions are carried over into the new development agreement as shown there on the screen before you. Staff is recommending approval of the proposed modification to the development agreement. Written testimony has been received from the public from a few folks, Denise Lefevre, Irene Hoffman, and David Hoffman, and that is included in the public record in the project file. And a response to the staff report was received from the applicant, and they are in agreement with staff's recommended development agreement provisions. Staff will stand for any questions.

Thank you. Counsel, any questions for staff? Okay, would the applicant like to come forward?

thank you mayor members of council eli bensky 2929 west navigator drive thank you sonia for your presentation as she mentioned we're here for pollard west for the development agreement modification here is our conceptual layout that was submitted with the preliminary plot of 2019 and assigned with the development agreement Specifically we're discussing the area that is west of Levi's south of Waverton This gives a better layout of the area that we are proposing this new development agreement for and Here's a close-up of that area. As Sonja mentioned, we do have three users that have received CZC and are currently under development. The lot three, that is St. Al's, they have already started construction. They actually broke ground last week, if not the week before. And Electrical Wholesale on lot two and Rogue Credit Union on lot one, both of those buildings have been under construction. As mentioned, lot four is assigned for a daycare. Depending on tonight's hearing will depend if they can continue with their CUP process. And then lot five, we don't have users currently, but we are proposing two separate commercial buildings. And lot six is still slated to be St. Al's Hospital. Here are the elevations that were submitted with the three users that are currently under development. This is Rogue Credit Union that's on the hard corner of Levi and Chinden. With Rogue Credit Union, there is a plaza already approved with them. We are coordinating our construction of the plaza with their construction timelines. We hope to get that completed here in the fall. These are the elevations for electric wholesale. They are in the center of the three users that I mentioned. They're on lot two. And this is St. Owl's building that they broke ground on just recently. And that is the lot that is closer to Waverton. With that, I stand for any questions.

Thank you. Any questions for the applicant?

It feels consistent with what you were planning before. I don't think it's too far out of the realm of what we anticipated. My biggest question mark is Number six, I understand that you're expecting a St. Al's Hospital there still, that's great. It's a little tough without a lot of detail as to what that's going to look like. Can you give us a better sense for what is planned there? Has it changed the scale? How is that piece of the concept plan going to come together? And at what point would you be moving that piece forward?

Mayor Council woman, thank you for that question, we still continue with proposing what we initially proposed with the 2019 2019 application in regards to the intensity of the hospital those plans have not changed, however, I don't have any elevations from St al's yet in regards to what that might look like. Okay.

So additional questions. Thank you.

Thank you.

Mr. Clark, can we have anybody sign up on this item?

Mr. Mayor, we have one, Denise Lefevre.

Hello again, Denise.

Hi Mayor, hi City Council members. My name is Denise Lefevre, 6706 North Selvia Way. I'll just keep it short and sweet. My biggest concern is that this particular development had a lot of conditions when it was originally passed. It had the fire engine ladder, it had a sewer lift, it had connectivity with transportation. There were a lot of issues. to have this approved. My biggest concern is to make sure that those issues carry forward in the development agreements as they break these apart. And that the costs are not being transferred onto existing taxpayers, onto agencies or other people. That what they promised that they would do, that gets passed into the development agreements. So, is there any questions?

Council, any questions?

Mr. Mayor.

Councilor Schroeder.

I read your email and it seemed like you also had some specific like infrastructure capacity concerns. Do you feel like if those DA provisions transferred over into the individual separate agreements that that would alleviate those concerns? Help me understand that piece a little more.

Yes, there, there are capacity issues and there are other issues that I feel that if he, this was not this was one concept plan it wasn't broken into seven. And so those need to flow through in particular is the transportation, part of it. As far as the roads and making sure you have connectivity east and west, you know, that is a signal light with Levi, that that has some connectivity, hopefully north south. The lift station was in particular. There were other requirements that I just want to see that they get passed on and that those are not forgiven as you break them apart.

Thank you.

Any additional questions? All right. Thank you. Is there anybody else who would like to provide testimony on this item? Either come forward or raise your hand online. Seeing no one coming forward to raise their hand, would the applicant like to make any final comments?

Mayor, thank you. Council Administrator, this is an example of what they have told us it may look like. This is the St. Alphonsus in Caldwell. Obviously, construction can change a little bit, but this is the same intensity and elevations that they were planning to put in. So I just quickly grabbed that snapshot. I apologize it's a YouTube video snapshot, but I thought it could at least provide that imagery for you guys. In addition, as Sonia mentioned, we are happy with carrying over the conditions with the original DA. This just ties us and allows us to move forward with the users. In terms of the construction of roadways, Levi is constructed as a five-lane roadway with the center turn lane. And we are completed with Waverton regarding that being a collector roadway through where ACHD has required us to carry that collector through the pollard subdivision stand for any other questions

Mr. Mayor, excuse me. I just wanted to add something if I could before the public hearing closed and Eli's available to comment. I noticed the DA provisions neglected to include a restriction on the uses that on the lots that didn't have a concept plan on them, specifically lot six that's anticipated to develop with the hospital. and lot five for the two commercial buildings i would like to recommend that that specifically get included in the development agreement just so that the uses are memorialized thank you if applicants in agreement thank you mr mayor hello share

Yeah, that helps me address a question I had, Sonia, which was I just wanted to double check that the same DA provisions are going to apply. It's just that we're now splitting it into separate agreements. I just wanted to double check on that because I think to Denise's point, that was true about the original approval. It was very detailed. There were many conditions. I just want to make sure those conditions still apply. It's just that they're being separated out.

Yes, ma'am. I'll bet. The development agreement provisions have been gone through. And as I noted earlier, the ones that are applicable have been moved over to the new agreement. And those are included in the staff report.

Mr. Mayor, quick follow up.

Council Chair.

So it sounds like the only modification that needs to be added is just to specify the uses on lot six and lot five. Thank you.

Council, any additional questions for the applicant? Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Mr. Mayor. I'm happy to get this moving. I move that we close the public hearing on this item.

Second.

I have a motion and a second to close the public hearing on item H2026-0015. Is there any discussion? If not, in favor signify by saying aye.

Aye.

Opposed nay. The ayes have it. The public hearing is closed.

Mr. Mayor, I'd like to make a motion. After considering all staff, applicant, and public testimony, I move to approve file number H2026-0015 as presented in the staff report for today's hearing date with the addition of specifying the uses on Lot 5 and Lot 6 as outlined by Sonia. Second.

I have a motion and a second to approve item H2026-0015. Is there discussion on the motion? If not, call the roll.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Taylor.

Aye.

Strader. Aye. Woodlock.

Aye.

Little Roberts. Overton.

Aye. All ayes. Motion carries. The item is agreed to. Thank you. Have a good evening. Next item up is item five, which is the public hearing for Midgro Plaza SHP 2026-0004. We'll open this public hearing with staff comments.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor, members of the council. The next application before you is a request for a short plat. This site consists of 12.84 acres of land. It's zoned CG and IL, and it's located at 1450 East Franklin Road. History on this property, in 2007, a property boundary adjustment was approved by the city, which created the legal parcel for the proposed subdivision. In 2020, a rezone of 1.96 acres of land from IL to CG and a preliminary plat was approved. A time extension for the preliminary plat was approved, but the plat later expired. There is no development agreement in effect or a court required for this property. The comprehensive plan future land use map designation is commercial on the southern six acres of the property and general industrial on the northern seven acres. The applicant is requesting approval of a short plat consisting of two building lots on 12.84 acres of land in the CG and IL zoning districts as shown there on the left. The proposed lots are anticipated to develop with six flex space buildings and future pad site. Flex space is a principle permitted use in both zoning districts subject to the specific use standards in the UDC. Establishment of the use and the internal site design is not being reviewed or approved as part of the subject application. A subsequent certificate of zoning compliance will be required to determine consistency with UDC standards. The Five Mile Creek crosses the site within a 90 foot wide easement A conservation easement also exists in the same area for protection of designated wetlands along the creek. The creek is required to remain open and be protected during development. A portion of this site along the creek is in the floodplain. A floodplain development permit is required prior to development. The Evans drain runs along the northern boundary of this site within a 60-foot wide easement as depicted on the proposed plat. Structures and improvements should not encroach within any of these easements. Two accesses are proposed by North Locust Grove Road. One full access, that's the northern access in this location right here, is an existing 40-foot wide ingress and egress easement that aligns with the Lanark Street to the east. And this should be the primary access for the development. and one right in right out access midway to the south between the existing access easement and Franklin Road. There is an existing curb cut on Franklin Road that will remain for maintenance vehicle access only for the creek. Private streets may be required within the development for emergency wayfinding purposes. Cross-access ingress-egress easements are required to be granted to the property to the west on the north and south sides of the creek unless already existing. A minimum 25-foot-wide street buffer is required to be constructed on the side along North Locust Grove Road and East Franklin Road with the subdivision improvements. An attached sidewalk that's in good condition exists along the frontage of this site adjacent to Franklin and Locust Grove Roads and is not required to be replaced. A 10-foot-wide multi-use pathway is depicted on the pathway's master plan from the Franklin and Locust Grove intersection to the west to the creek and then northwest along the east side of the Five Mile Creek. Only an easement is required at this time for the pathway. Staff is recommending approval. Written testimony has been received from Anthony Swanson, Hillside Architecture. He's the applicant's representative, and he is in agreement with the staff report. Staff will stand for any questions.

Thank you. So any counsel, any questions for staff? Is the applicant here? Good evening. Say your name and address for the record and be recognized for 10 minutes.

Anthony Swanson with Hillside Architecture, 345 Bob White Court, Boise, Idaho. Good evening, Mayor and Councilmembers. My name is Anthony Swanson. I'm the applicant and project architect at Hillside Architecture for this project. I'm here today representing Copium Investments and representing the short plat for the Midgar Plaza subdivision. As Sonia described, this is a pretty straightforward division just into two different lots. For development, our development is proposed to be within the general commercial and light industrial zoning, and we intend to develop future flex space buildings within these parcels. We are fully in agreement and understand the department-specific conditions, and we are ready to go forward with these conditions in the normal CZC design review and permitting process. We believe this is in conformance with the UDC and the guidelines of the comprehensive plan, and we support your approval if you would give it.

Thank you. Counsel, any questions for the applicant? Okay. Thank you very much. Anyone set up on this item?

Mr. Mayor, only the applicant.

Okay. Is there anybody present that would like to provide testimony on this item, either in the room or online? Seeing no one coming forward, does the applicant waive any final comments? Applicant waives final comments. Council, what's your direction?

Mr. Mayor.

Councilman Overton. No further public comments. I move we close the public hearing. Motion second to close the public hearing. Is there any discussion? If not, all in favor signify by saying aye.

Aye.

Opposed, nay. The ayes have it. The public hearing is closed.

Mr. Mayor. Councilman Overton. I wouldn't kick this off. Actually very glad to see after all these years, something actually occurring on that corner. So there's no other comments. I'd like to move after considering all staff applicant and public testimony. I moved to approve file number SHP 2026-0004 as presented in the staff report for the hearing date of June 23rd, 2026. Second.

I have a motion and a second to approve item five. Is there discussion on the motion? If not, call the roll.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Taylor? Streeter?

Aye.

Woodlock? Aye. Little-Roberts? Aye. Overton?

Aye. All ayes. Motion carried. The item is agreed to. So next up is item six, which is a continued public hearing from June 16th to consider adoption of the 80 County Jail Development Impact Fees Ordinance and the 80 County Emergency Medical Services District Development Impact Fee Ordinance authorizing the imposition of new county-related development impact fees. Mr. Mayor, do you have any additional comments that you'd like to make for anybody that may be tuning in for the first time?

No, sir. Just a second, Randy, for tonight.

Okay. So is there anybody who signed up to provide testimony on this item?

Mr. Mayor, nobody signed up.

OK. Is anybody present that would like to provide additional testimony on this item? Seeing no one coming forward for additional testimony. Council, would you like to continue this one out for a third public hearing?

Mr. Mayor, I'd like to move that we continue this to a third hearing on July 7th, 2026. Second.

I have a motion and a second to continue this public hearing until July 3rd? 7th? Which one did I hear? 7th. Okay. I know July 3rd. I'm in a different state. So, continue this until July 7th. Is there any discussion? If not, all in favor, signify by saying aye.

Aye.

Opposed, nay. The ayes have it. The public hearing is continued. With that, we'll move on to Item 7, which is the second reading of Orders Number 26-2126. I ask the clerk to read this order by title.

Thank you, Ms. Merritt. It's an ordinance adding new Title 12 called Countywide Development Impact Fees to the Meridian City Code and adding there to a new Chapter 1 called Ada County Jail Development Impact Fees that provides for short chapter title, authority, findings, applicability, and purpose, definitions, capital improvement plan, periodic review as a capital improvements plan, intergovernmental agreement with Ada County, imposition of county impact fees and payments, enforcement and collection, county impact fee administration, administrator, and city powers to require payment of county impact fees, county impact fees exemptions, process for individual assessment, extraordinary impacts, developer credits and reimbursements, county impact fee payment mistakes or misrepresentation, fee payer refunds, county impact fee capital projects, trust fund, expenditures, budget, audit and surcharge, appeals and mediation, miscellaneous provisions, punishment for violations, construction of ordinance intent, and providing an effective date.

Thank you can see for this ordinance read by titles and made the liquor in its entirety. Thank you and we'll have the third reading on that same date on the seventh. So with that we'll move on to item eight, which is a second reading divorce number 26 dash to one to seven so quickly read this ordinance by title.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. It's an ordinance amending Meridian City Code by the addition thereto of a new Chapter 2 of Title 12 called Ada County Emergency Medical Services District Development Impact Fees, providing for short chapter title, authority findings, applicability and purpose, definitions, capital improvement plan, periodic review of the capital improvements plan, intergovernmental agreement with EMS district, imposition of EMS impact fees and payment, enforcement and collection, EMS district impact fee administrator and city powers to require payment of EMS impact fees, EMS impact fees, exemptions, process for individual assessment, extraordinary impacts, developer credits and reimbursements, EMS impact fee payment mistake or misrepresentation, fee payer refunds, EMS impact fee, capital projects, trust fund, expenditures, budget, audit, and surcharge, appeals and mediation, miscellaneous provisions, punishment for violations, construction, abhorrence, intent, and providing an effective date.

Thank you. Counsel, you've heard this one is read by Tal. Is there anybody that would like to read it in its entirety? Seeing none, we'll have item, a third reading on July 7th. So with that, council, anything under future meeting topics? Or a motion to adjourn? Mr. Mayor, I move that we adjourn.

Second.

Motion and second to adjourn. All in favor signify by saying aye.

Aye.

Opposed, nay.