City Council - Regular Meeting

Can you hear us? I can. Can you hear me?

Yes, thank you.

Great, thanks.

Council will call the meeting order for the record is Tuesday, September 5th, 2026 at 4.30 PM. We'll begin this work session with roll call attendance.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Councilman Kavanaugh. Here. Councilman Taylor. Here. Councilwoman Strader. Councilman Whitlock. Here. Councilwoman Little-Roberts. Here. Councilman Overton.

Here. Mayor Simison. Here. Next item up is adoption of the agenda. Mr. Mayor. Councilman Overton.

We have to modify the executive session item 12 to read the following. Executive session for Idaho code 74206 subsection 1F to communicate with legal counsel for the public agency to discuss the legal ramifications of and legal options for pending litigation or controversies not yet being litigated. but eminently likely to be litigated, and 1J, to consider labor contract matters authorized under section 74-206A, subsection 1A and 1B of Idaho Code. And with that change in language to item 12, we approve the agenda. Second. Second.

Have a motion and a second to adopt the agenda with that new information is there a discussion. If not all favor signify by saying aye aye those a guys have it and the agenda is agreed to next up is a consent agenda, Mister mayor that's over 10.

No changes to tonight's consent agenda move that we approve the consent agenda for the mayor to sign a clerk to test.

Have a motion second to approve the consent agenda is there a discussion if not all favor signify by saying aye aye. Okay, the eyes have it, and the consent agenda is agreed to. There were no items moved from the consent agenda, so we'll move on to our department reports. First item up is item nine, which is the rose circle fence discussion for Mr. Curtis Calder.

Good afternoon, Mayor and City Council. I'm going to have a discussion prior to the next agenda item, just talking about the Rose Circle Fence Project. This is something I've been working on and off on for probably upwards of a year. Recently, a couple months ago, we were able to get before MDC, and that's what has driven it to this point, is they have agreed to a reimbursement agreement. But let's talk through some of the details on it first. Get my thing to move here. There it goes. background. So Rose Circle, I'm sure everyone's familiar with it. It's on the corner of West Franklin and South Meridian. It was a mobile home subdivision created in 1970. A lot of people just think it's a mobile home park but it does have individual parcels with lots of different ownership in there. There is a chain link fence that goes around the perimeter of that subdivision, and the only two portions we're talking about are West Franklin Road and South Meridian. And over time, that fence has become blighted. It's in disrepair. There's some breaks in it. There's missing sections. People have attached personal fences to that fence. It's not in great condition. The subdivision is within the Urban Renewal District, Meridian Urban number one. And it does expire at the end of this calendar year. So as it sits today, to the best of our knowledge, looking at the property corners, it looks like it sits right on top of the property line, which would make it a partition fence, meaning that each adjoining property owner has 50% responsibility for construction, maintenance, repair, etc., On the street side, it's public right-of-way. It's ACHD's right-of-way. And on the Rose Circle side, it's the 17 different parcel owners. There was an HOA way back in 1970, but that has long since expired. So there's no singular contact. point for us to talk to so um achd claims no responsibility for the fence they inherited it at least the franklin fence from itd it used to be an itd right-of-way And the proposed solution is to replace the current fence with a precast concrete fence similar to the one in the picture. It doesn't have to be exactly like that but that's a good example. Those are installed and they look concrete when they're installed and then they're stained after the fact so they can be different shades of color and that would be decided I guess later. But in order to qualify for the MDC reimbursement, that fence would have to sit within the ACHD right-of-way. It has to be on public property. So if we can accomplish that, MDC has offered the city up to $125,000 in reimbursement. The estimate for this project would be about $112,000. It allows some contingency in case we run into utility conflicts, which I'm sure we're going to. And that gets into the challenges portion. uh... very narrow public right-of-way between the site and edge of the sidewalk in the existing fence this picture is the meridian roadside uh... much narrower than the franklin side so this particular side defense would have to actually be pulled out there's just enough room to put the posts in between the sidewalk and the existing fence line to get it clearly in the right of way. Probably where there's four telephone poles on Meridian that the fence has to go around. Those might end up on the property line again, depending on how close we can get to the telephone pole. So that's going to be a challenge on the Meridian roadside. On the Franklin roadside, Depending on what the property owners would prefer, the fence could actually be built far enough away from the existing fence it doesn't even need to be removed. Some may want it removed, some may not. We got our estimate based on the assumption everybody wants the chain link fence removed. So that $112,000 we think is a pretty good number. We talked about the utility conflicts. time constraints because the URD is expiring at the end of the calendar year. The way that would work is even if we didn't get the work completed by December 31st, as long as we were under contracts and everything was executed, we would have until the end of the first quarter of 2027 to complete it so the goal would be to have it completed by december 31st but let's say there's a blizzard or a weather problem or something happens we can't do it we'd still be eligible for the reimbursement even if we were finished in january We do have to have a license agreement with ACHD to do this. They do not want to have any ownership of the fence. So if we were to pursue this project, the city of Meridian will own the fence and be responsible for it if it's damaged or if it needs maintenance in the future. So those are the challenges in talking with fence contractors. It's about a 30 to 45-day project once they get a notice to proceed. And barring some unforeseen utility conflict, they think that's a realistic number. So with that, I'll just open it up to questions. I'm sure you have some.

Thank you, Curtis. Council, questions? Questions?

Mr. Mayor.

Councilman Overton.

Not so much a question as a comment to the rest of council. Curtis did reach out to me and we discussed this a few weeks ago. I thought it was a good enough idea as a win-win all the way around for having this fence put up. It was good to bring forward and it was a good idea to have MDC be part of this. I think that's a great opportunity. I just want to make one comment because you're going to have to hear some of my historical knowledge that's totally worthless, but you're going to hear it anyway. ITD owned the right-of-way on Franklin Road, and I know that because back in the day, there used to be a sign at the corner of Meridian and Franklin that was U.S. Highway 30, and it was 397 miles from that intersection to Portland, Oregon. And that's why it was listed as an ITD right away at that time. Interstate was still rather new and that Highway 30 still exists, but now it parallels the interstate. So if you're wondering why ITD had a right away on Franklin Road, that is the reason why it existed back in the day. I think this is, I still, I think this is a win-win if we can make all the parties to this agreement happy, especially how you're going to deal with that telephone pole.

Yeah, we've had some conversations with the power company, and they said as long as they don't have to move their power pole and we can get around it and they can still climb up the pole, they're okay with it. But there's other utilities in there. There is an irrigation diversion box on the corner. It's hard to see. It's all overgrown. I don't think it's actively being used. And when I contacted the Nampa Meridian Irrigation District, they said that's a private utility box. And, uh, as I looked into it further, um, a lot of the parcels, not all of them, but a lot of the parcels in Rose Circle actually have water rights attached to that. So I don't think whether it's operable or not, or anything, I think we're going to work around that regardless. Um, Just because those water rights are in existence on some of those parcels. So that little gate that you see on the corner will have to have an access gate. I was kind of hoping not to have an access gate, but I think we're going to have to put a gate in there as well.

Mr. Mayor. Councilman Schrader.

What kind of useful life does this type of fence have? And what kind of maintenance do we anticipate? Or how frequently might we have to replace the fence or repair it? I mean, obviously, if someone runs into it, it's out of our control. But help me understand what a precast concrete fence will look like in 20 years. Sure.

Yeah, that's a great question. I didn't know much about them either when I started. So the posts themselves are concrete. So you got a concrete post and they'll have rails on the inside of those and what looks like wood is actually concrete precast slats that slide down the rails. So in the event a car hits one, a section of that and it breaks, that section can be lifted out in pieces or whatever and new pieces can be put back in. It would have to be restained to match whatever the color is. And the fence manufacturer recommends resealing the concrete fence once every three years. It's about $1,500 to have the contractor do that for the 1,200 lineal feet. So it's not a big expense, but if you want it to last its maximum life, you're going to want to reseal it with a spray-on coating. Contractor does that. We wouldn't have to mess with it, but we would have to pay for it. As far as durability, we did look at vinyl types of fences. There's a lot of those around too. But due to the proximity to the road and the rocks that get thrown up by wheels, when it's cold, those get holes in them. And they said that vinyl fencing would have to be constantly maintained. We'd be breaking them and there'd be holes in them and we'd have to be in there fixing it all the time. So... That's why we gravitated towards the concrete solution. It's going to be the most durable, most cost effective fence. Hopefully it'll last 50 years. Okay.

Thank you. Mr. Mayor.

That's one of the little Roberts.

Mr. Mayor. Thank you so much. This has been very interesting as well as enlightening regarding that corner. So then who becomes the keeper of the fence? Does that then lie in economic development or does parks get it? Sorry, Steve, because they've probably got more fencing. How we ask so often in development, who is going to track that so it gets done?

Well, I hope it's not economic development. But that said, I'd be happy if no one else wants it, I would be happy to take it. But, yeah, I think, you know, so it'll be on the ACHD's right-of-way. I assume they will continue their weed abatement that they do. I mean, you probably saw them out weeding it earlier this year. So if they're going to do that, that's great because that's going to be a constant ongoing maintenance item that As far as the staining of the fence, the contractor does that, but someone has to interact with the contractor and get the quotes and do all of that. So that would probably be the extent of it with regard to anything short of a car crash into the fence. But yeah, we probably need to identify a department that would deal with it in the event of an accident or something.

Thank you. It would go into our facilities management group. They would be the ones that would probably make sure the staining gets done and any general issues.

Mr. Mayor.

Councilman Locke.

Curtis, thanks. I don't have quite the history with this corner as Councilman Overton does, but tell me a little bit about the neighbors. Tell me a little bit about the neighbors and have we talked to them about precast concrete? Have we talked to them about staining the inside and the outside? Do we maintain both sides? It seems to me that you would want to tear out the fence first, the existing fence before installing, but sounds like they have a say in whether or not the existing wood and chain link fence comes out. Talk to me about that process with the neighbors and how that would work.

So we have made contact with, have spoken to probably 10 of the 17 residents right now. There's letters out currently to property owners trying to get response, engagement. Some are absentee owners. And we just started that process within the last two weeks or so. So we haven't been at that very long. um with regard to some of the comments that we've heard the concern about the coordination of the fence construction is really important to them because they a lot of them have pets and they don't want their pets getting out so we need to make some sort of allowance for how we will deal with You know, we can't really leave the fence open very long. It has to be, you know, sealed up pretty quick. So I know fence contractors, the one I spoke with that does these kinds of fence works with these issues all the time with people. So I think that's doable. I think on the Franklin Road side, if the residents... we're good with us just putting the fence a little closer to the road then we don't have to touch any of their existing fences they can leave those we can leave the existing chain link fence i know there's a lot of vegetation issues in there where vegetation's grown up there there's um a weird little access easement for a cable company for like a TV cable in there where there's a gap between the personal fences and the chain link fence that exists. We wouldn't be in that, but nonetheless, we're putting up one more barrier to make that more difficult for someone to go in there and deal with that cable. Assuming it's even active, it may not even be active. And we haven't had that conversation with that utility yet. So but with regard to the Meridian Road side, there's really no other way than pulling out the chain link fence. Some of those personal fences, even though they're on their private property, they've attached those with wire and other things to hold their fence up. Not in all cases, but in some cases. So if they've done that, those fences are probably going to have to come out with the chain link. Yeah, generally speaking, nobody's in opposition. They just have questions with regard to how the process would be done. There would have to be some intermittent sidewalk closures during this time frame. There'll be one piece of small equipment that would be drilling the holes that aren't hand dug. Some of the holes are going to have to be hand dug because of the utilities issues. They're 24-inch deep holes, 12 inches in diameter. So they're pretty good-sized holes. They will fit on that Meridian Road side. But if you have ever looked at it as you get closer to the traffic signal, there's a change in grade between the sidewalk and the bottom of the fence. And so that's another issue that a property owner brought up to me. is if they go in and they grade that down level with the sidewalk, there's going to be a pretty big gap. How is the fence going to compensate for that? And so that's why we put in the specifications. The fence is going to be between five and six feet tall. We'd like to keep the top of it as level as possible, but some parts of the fence might have to have a larger vertical gap. distance to cover those gaps on the bottom, assuming they have to grade it like that. They might not have to.

i believe that property owner just walked into the room oh well perfect it's perfect timing yep um maybe to follow up on one component that you mentioned is sustaining a for structural integrity of the fence long term or or because my question is really around you might need to stay in both sides if it's for structure which is access to the other people's property if it's a maintenance versus a visual. Do you know?

When I asked about that, so the pricing includes the staining on both sides, but they realized, too, that they would have to get permission from the property owners to get back there to do that. For consistency purposes, it's probably going to be a good idea to get everybody to either agree or not agree just because of that ongoing maintenance issue. So we'll have to work that out. But as far as the stain goes, it's my understanding it's really the color to color the concrete initially, and then a seal is put over the top of it. And then it's the seal that gets replaced or added to every three years or so. They said three to five years. It's based on the...

And so if the seal is not done on one side of the fence on a regular basis, because does that create how long it may last?

It could, certainly. Like, if we sealed it the first time, but we never got it done again, I'm sure it would degrade it quicker on that side. It's probably more protected on that side because of the houses, and it's not getting the wind and the rain like the other side would. But... Ideally, in a perfect world, everybody would agree, yeah, let's stain that side. We'll, in the license agreement with ACHD, allow access, something of that nature, so we don't have to have 17 separate agreements.

I think that goes back to the question about if the Franklin Road fence was not removed, it doesn't really give you access to do the staining very simply.

Yeah, it'd be a little tighter to do it that way. Yeah. But you'd still be up against the private property fences anyway, too, so. Okay.

Council, any further questions? Comments? Mayor? Councilman Taylor.

Quick question, Curtis. On the projected cost, about $111,000, $112,000, is that a firm estimate, or could that number adjust up once they get in there and realize maybe there's a little bit more work than they have? Because if we have a reimbursement agreement of $125,000 from MDC, Just a little concerned if it turns out to be $145,000 because there was something there that they hadn't expected. And if that were the case, the city would, I would assume, be on the hook because we'd pay for it and then be reimbursed. So how solid is that cost estimate?

So the estimate was based on fence contractors just walking it, looking at it, visually seeing it. They didn't do an 8-1-1, but it's pretty obvious what's kind of down there. So I think it's pretty good, but I think there will be additional labor involved with hand digging holes versus just running a machine in there and boring them in those areas of concern because we don't want to do any damage to any utilities. So I think there's enough contingency to cover most of it, but I would expect change orders for sure. And so it, you know, certainly targeting 125, no more than 125, but it could go slightly over if there was some unforeseen problem and the city would, you know, be on the hook for the difference.

Any additional questions, comments? Okay. Thank you, Curtis.

Okay. Thank you.

Mayor Mrakas, To cancel that does take us to number 10 if it's if this is something you'd like us to pursue there's a memorandum of agreement between the meridian development corporation and the city of meridian for this project.

Mayor Mrakas, That's my tailor yeah I think i'm fine with it, you know really think it would be an improvement I drive by that every day and. think the the new fence would look nice and it would be an improvement to the city and taking advantage of the opportunity to have that taken care of makes some sense i just a little concerned if the costs were to exceed that but um it seemed like it's reasonable i guess maybe one question as a quick follow-up to my earlier one if i may um would the process look like? Because the city would take care of the purchase, the install, everything, and then get that reimbursement once the work is done from MDC. Do you need to go back to the contractor and say we need a very fine-tuned, detailed estimate of work before we would authorize from the city to move ahead? Because I understand, my understanding right now, we're just looking at approving an MOA with MDC. But in terms of next steps where the city would actually incur the work and expense, help me understand what that would look like, if you could, real quick. Sure.

So, yeah, if we get the agreement finalized, the next step in the process would be to go through the informal bidding process, which is kind of dictated through Idaho code and the city's procurement policy. Bill might need to comment on that. I don't know if a procurement of this level would have to come back to the council or if we would just follow the policy. I'm under the assumption we would just follow the policy, but it would be a much more fine-tuned specification because we have to come up with the written specifications in order to do that. So it's going to detail all of the things that we're aware of right now. And we need to also in this process either decide to do the survey ourself and get that completed or make that a responsibility of the contractor to get the survey. One way or the other the thing's got to get surveyed so we know exactly where the property line is. But in talking to the fence contractor that we talked to he said be careful not to do the survey too early. Because then the stakes start disappearing, you know, before we get in there to do the work and it makes it more difficult. So I kind of need to work through the logistics of that part of it. But generally speaking, there will be written specifications. We'll follow our procurement policy. We'll go out to at least three licensed contractors, fence contractors to do the work. I think our policy requires them to put in a bond performance bond to get the work done so it's a pretty formalized process and it'll address things like change orders and you know they're going to have to come to us and say that we have a change order you know and we'll need to say in this contract with them how the once a contract is awarded with them of how change orders would be handled.

And I think just to piggyback on that, obviously we can't do a budget amendment. We're in that no-go zone for a budget amendment. So there's going to be some time that has to pass before we even get there. And if we find out that the bids are not adequate, then obviously we'll have to do another agreement with NBC and adjust the dollar figure. But, yeah, that process will go. But we can't actually go out to bid, I don't think, until we have a budget amendment.

Approved unless the NBC agreement supplants that option And that was that's a purchasing finance question so mr. Mayor to that to that and I'm just trying to make sure I'm understanding what's first here in this process because if we Essentially item number 10 having this moa between MDC and the city is is to enter into a reimbursement agreement of $125,000. If Curtis comes back once we have the final details and it's $155,000 or $165,000, I would not want to move ahead at that point. I wanted to make sure that the city could say, we're not going to do that anymore.

You should have either a bite for the budget amendment when that comes and or a revised MOU that would have the appropriate dollar figure at that point in time. So one to two bites.

Okay. And I appreciate that. I mean, do we need to make a motion to approve the MOA here between MDC and the city on item number 10? Because I'd be happy to do that if that's okay. If there's no more discussion now, I would move that we approve the memorandum of agreement between Meridian Development Corporation and the City of Meridian for a row circle mobile home subdivision fencing agreement.

have a motion second to provide him 10 is there discussion. If not on favor signify by saying I. Those name is have it in the item is agreed to a thank you, thank you curtis. Okay next item up is like view golf course fees update turn this over to Mr white.

Mr. Mayor and Council, thanks for having me tonight. I'm here to talk to you guys about the fee proposal for Lakeview Golf Course. The objectives tonight is really just to have a discussion and get your guys' feedback. I don't necessarily need any kind of motions or anything, but more of a thumbs up, head shake. What'll happen is, is after your feedback, we'll post the fees based on feedback and come back for a public hearing in about two to three weeks. So with that, I'll jump into our fee proposal. In working with finance this year, we wanted to compare the FY26 budget to the new FY27 budget and kind of look at the cost differences there from our personnel and our operating costs. In that, the budget increased by about $201,000 and some change. So when we first looked at the fees, we wanted to cover those costs. So in diving into all the fees and the numbers and number of rounds sold in FY25 and the projected in FY26 rounds sold, we came up with our fees. In doing that we after well after doing the fees that way we compared them to our Comparables like we've done every year just to make sure we're in the still in the market and still within the right range based on our comparables The fee proposals that are in front of you put us right very close to the average of the current comps. So with that I'll stand for questions. The memo that I have attached really kind of explains it in a little bit more depth. But with that, I'll stand for questions at this point.

Council, initial questions?

Mr. Mayor.

Council Chair.

Not a question, maybe a question I had previewed for you, just if you wanted to walk us through the comparables and kind of how we stack up to a couple of the surrounding golf courses. I just think that's helpful for everybody in terms of the context that we're in.

Sure, Mr. Mayor, Council Administrator. So the comparables that we reached out to are kind of a mix of what we feel is, I mean, every course is kind of like comparing apples to oranges, really, right? But we did want to compare them just to make sure we're in a still ballpark. So some of those that we used were Boise Ranch, Centennial, Eagle Hills, Purple Sage, Quail Hollow, Red Hawk, Ridgecrest, River Birch, Shadow Valley, Warm Springs, and then obviously Lakeview. The fee proposals in front of you put us about a dollar under the average of all of those 10 courses when it comes to the day passes. And then our season pass holders, we did the calculations that we've done every year for the last four or five years based on the breakeven amount of rounds sold based on the current fee. multiplied by a certain number to come up with the season pass holder. So that way it's consistent every year, if that makes any sense. So does that answer your question when it comes to comparables and where we sit?

Mr. Mayor. I also share.

Yeah, I think it's helpful. I just thought everyone would like to hear that we're about a dollar less than the average. I think that was the key piece of info. And you don't need action tonight, right? This is just feedback.

Right. Just for discussion. And like I said before, we want to cover the cost difference from last year's budget to this year's budget. It's really our target.

Mr. Mayor. Councilman Schroeder.

Yeah, and just on that, I've never loved that we're in the golf course business, but I accept that we are in the golf course business. That's where we're at. I did and do feel really strongly that covering our costs is really important. So I think there's a good reason behind increasing them. You know, I think it's still very competitive from what I had seen. So I'm in support of it, but I just thought that that background info would be helpful for the council.

Thank you.

Mr. Mayor.

Councilman Little-Roberts.

Mayor Garrett, the golf course looks great, first and foremost. And so, Ryan.

Ryan and his crew. Ryan and Nick, yeah.

So I was actually kind of surprised that we didn't up them more given how crazy busy it is. But I know that it's for the citizens and stuff. So I think that that's very reasonable. And I think you're on a great track to just make sure that we're recouping our costs. So but great job. Some of us worked very, very hard since we owned the dirt to get us into the golf course business. So good job.

Mr. Mayor, thank you very much for that compliment. I know I'll pass it on, obviously, to Nick, but Ryan's here too. And they both do such a great job out there running it. So, yeah, thank you.

Mr. Mayor.

Councilman Taylor.

Just looking at the information, 2025, we had about 49,997 rounds. Is that... I mean, how much more room do we have for additional rounds? Like what's our capacity? Are we, you know, cause it would seem like the more rounds you could get, obviously is a great way to get additional revenue without raising the rate. So I'm just kind of curious, you know, where that stacks up in terms of like what we could, if we could get 52,000 rounds and what, what does that mean? What does that look like? So I'm just kind of curious if you could walk me through that a little bit. I'm comfortable with sort of where the fees are. I actually had a guy comment last year when I was golfing with him, he said, the city's trying to make this a bougie golf course. I'm like, I think they're just trying to make it a city golf course. But that said, I'm kind of curious the capacity and increasing the number of rounds or if we're already at max capacity, what that looks like.

Yeah. I'm going to punt to Ryan on that one.

So.

Yeah, thank you. Each year I try and find more ways to get some more revenue, some more rounds. Then I start to deal with daylight maintenance, what they need to do, the time that they need to get out there, our time constraints in the morning. But each year I find more ways to make some more rounds and revenue with... The way that we run tournaments and getting tournament or getting some more play out there when the tournament's clear. So there's little things here and there where we do those types of tournaments and clinics and stuff where we're able to get out some more rounds and revenue. But 51 was a good number. I think 55 is pushing it with everything that I've named on where we can go with time constraints and maintenance and the crew and everything that they need to do.

Samir that's what a follow-up do you have a sense where we're on track for 2026 I think we're going to be over 51,000 this year so close to 52. it may be a different way to ask the question are are almost all groups foursomes or are we three is a very enough

It varies. Yeah, you know, it depends on the day. Mondays, Tuesdays, and Wednesdays, it depends on the time of the day, what day of the week it is. You know, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sundays, we're maxing out foursomes. Afternoon play, yeah, we get the twosomes, the threesomes, and the singles, but obviously we're trying to max out the tee sheet as much as we can, but it just depends on the day.

So there is capacity, but it would require... I don't know if we force people to take twosomes, if they're twosome and there's other two or three and take a one.

Yes, we do. We try and maximize it out. So yes, there's some room in that area as well. Okay.

Mr. Mayor.

Councilman Overton.

Just a quick comment. So the average golfers go out and we seem to get really good feedback. But I've gotten feedback now from three different organizers of tournaments that have run out at the golf course. And I was impressed because if there was a time where you guys are pushed to the limit, it's when almost every single golf cart you have is rented out and you're pushing that course on every hole all day long. And the feedback has been tremendous. The quality of the course, the way it's run, how everything worked. I couldn't ask for more. It's amazing that we can do that and we're still a municipal golf course. And we're not one of these big, fancy private clubs. It's tremendous recognition of the hard work you guys put in. So thank you very much.

Thank you. We've got a great staff, and thanks to your support. We appreciate it.

And I would just add, you know, obviously one of our competitors to the east has made a very large investment in their clubhouse facilities and operations. I was over in Pocatello not that long ago. They, too, were making improvements to their municipal facilities and clubhouse. We're hearing about a resurgence in golf. as as in society it does seem to be that so you know i think the investments we've made were wise investments to be able to have a competitive um facility for to attract golfers tournaments all those things so i think it's it is paying off in the long run but it's also you know we got to keep taking care of everything whether it's a fence to stain or grass tomorrow and that the team is doing a great job and I look forward to seeing it on Friday.

We were out there last week as part of the parks to her and things were just buzzing at Lakeview and it's good to see. I'm of the belief that it's it's a good deal until it's not a good deal and we've created a good deal for the citizens of Meridian It's good to see people out there utilizing this amenity that we're able to provide. Ryan, kudos to you because the course is beautiful and it's being utilized. So good work and let's keep making it a good deal. And thanks for the research. I kind of like to be that $1 below the average of everybody else. So appreciate your work on that.

Okay, well, what we'll do is we'll post these fees and then come back in two weeks for a public hearing and go from there.

All right, thank you.

Thank you, appreciate it.

Okay, with that, we'll move on to item 12. Mr. Mayor. Councilman Overton.

Move that we go into executive session for Idaho Code 74-206, subsection 1F, 1J, and 74-206A, 1A, and B. Seconded.

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

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Kavanagh?

Aye. Taylor? Rader?

Whitlock?

Aye.

Little-Roberts? Aye. Overton?

Aye. All ayes. Motion carries. We'll go into executive session. I have another motion.

I move we adjourn.

Second.

Motion second to adjourn. All in favor say goodbye by saying aye.

Aye.

Opposed nay. The ayes have it. We are adjourned. Good to go. Doug. Council will call the meeting or for the record is Tuesday, September 15th, 2026 at 6.02 PM. We'll begin tonight's record city council meeting with roll call attendance.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Councilman Kavanaugh. Here. Councilman Taylor.

Here.

Councilwoman Strader.

Here.

Councilman Whitlock. Here. Councilwoman Little Roberts. Here. Councilman Overton. Here. Mayor Simison.

Here. Next item is a pledge of allegiance. Please rise and join us in the pledge. We had no one sign up for our community invocations, so we'll move on to adoption of the agenda. Mr. Mayor. Councilman Overton.

There is one change to tonight's agenda. We're going to vacate item four, the executive session. And with that, I move that we approve the rest of the agenda as published.

Second.

I have a motion and a second to adopt the agenda with removal of the executive session. Is there any discussion? If not, I'm favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Aye. Those thing you guys have it can you just agree to with that will move on to our proclamations, the first one we're going to do this evening is the national diaper needs awareness because Megan anyone else to join me at the podium. Meg, you're becoming a little pro with these. Appreciate you coming back and making this happen each year. So I'll go ahead and read a proclamation and turn it over for any comments you all would like to make this evening. Whereas diaper need, the condition of not being able to afford a sufficient supply of clean diapers to keep babies and toddlers clean, dry and healthy, can adversely affect the health and well-being of children and their families. And whereas a supply of diapers is generally an eligibility requirement for babies and toddlers to participate in child care programs and quality early education programs that enable children to thrive, and parents to work. And whereas through their work of addressing diaper needs, diaper banks play a critical role in supporting Idaho's families and children in improving infant health and well-being. And whereas diaper need is a public health issue, and addressing diaper needs can lead to economic opportunity for the state's families and communities and improved health for children. And whereas Moody is proud to be home to trusted community-based organizations, including the Idaho Diaper Bank, that fill this crucial role for families, the state, and our city. Therefore, I, Robert E. Simpson, proclaim the week of September 14th through 20th, 2026, as National Diaper Need Awareness Week in the City of Meridian, encourage all Meridian citizens to recognize the role of diaper banks in addressing diaper need and to support organizations that collect and distribute diapers to families struggling with diaper needs and help all Meridian families thrive. It is 15th day of September, 2026. On behalf of myself and City Council, I'd like to present this proclamation to you and invite you up to say a few words.

Thank you, Mayor. The Idaho Diaper Bank is very proud to be a part of the Meridian community. Our warehouse is located right here in Meridian. And from there, we are on track to distribute nearly a million diapers this year to families in need in Meridian and throughout the Treasure Valley and really help support those families and help them thrive physically, mentally, economically.

Thank you.

Okay, now for our next one, I invite up Mari and anybody else from our team who would like to join for National Hispanic American Heritage Month. And I'll start as you come up. I don't know if there's a video of it, but Councilman Overton this week attended the Mexican Independence Day Festival at Plano Park. And him, along with his wife, did an amazing rendition of a proclamation in support of that event and that activity, including the Spanish version. So appreciate John doing that, so. It's always good to see you, so we'll go ahead and do this and then turn it over to you, Mari. Whereas National Hispanic Heritage Month provides an opportunity to recognize the rich histories, cultures, traditions, and achievements of people of Hispanic heritage while celebrating the enduring contributions they continue to make to our communities and our nation. And whereas national observation began in 1968 as Hispanic Heritage Week under President Lyndon Johnson and was expanded by President Ronald Reagan in 1988 to cover 30-day periods starting September 15th and ending October 15th of each year, and it was enacted into law on August 17th, 1988. And whereas this month's theme, Unidas Somos Us, Together We Are More, highlights unity, community resilience, and shared principles like family, perseverance, service, and creativity across diverse backgrounds. And whereas in Meridian and across the nation, Hispanic residents, families, businesses, educators, artists, entrepreneurs, and community leaders like those found at the Idaho Hispanic Foundation contribute to the city's continued growth, innovation, cultural diversity, and civic life, helping build a welcoming, prosperous, and vibrant community for all. Therefore, I, Mayor Robert E. Simerson, do hereby proclaim September 15th Through October 15th is Hispanic Heritage Month in the City of Meridian. I encourage all citizens to celebrate the rich history, cultures, and contributions of people of Hispanic heritage, recognize the important role they continue to play in the life of our community, and participate in activities to promote understanding, appreciation, and the unity throughout the month. We have this 15th day of September 2026. On behalf of myself and the City Council, I'd like to present this proclamation to you. I'm welcome to say a few words.

Well, thank you so much, Mayor. Thank you, City Council, for this proclamation. You know, we strive to work and make Meridian a place we can work and play and just live comfortably. And we are now at about 1 in 5. people in Meridian who consider themselves Hispanic. So that is quite a big population. So we really, really are very grateful that you've taken the time to recognize our community and all of the contributions that our community makes here in Meridian and in Idaho. So thank you very much. Thank you so much.

We'll go start again.

And with that, we'll move on to announcements and recognition. Council, anything this evening? Okay. Mr. Quirk, do we have anyone set up under public forum?

Mr. Mayor, yes. First is McKenna Marshall. Good evening.

Hi. I'm I'm an RHS IB anthropology student studying how Meridian's environment affects its city council's response to water shortages to ensure sustainability. So my question for tonight is what is your process for approving water infrastructure or policies what factors go through your mind to be sure of your answer, for example, do you rely on an expert to explain it, or do you prefer to have a document to review before asking questions.

Thank you. Unfortunately, we can't do a back and forth on the topic, but we can have someone either. If you want to leave your information, we will have someone reach out directly to you, either from our public works department or if any city council member would like to do that. So if you can just, I think we have our contact information. Is that right? I do not. If you can give it to Mr. Johnson over here and we can have someone follow up directly. Thank you. Any mails, Mr. Johnson?

Mr. Mayor, yes. Next is Linda Stevens.

Good evening.

Hello. This is regarding the proposed building that's going to be on Meridian Road, correct? What my comments are about?

If you're looking for the application, this is not about the application yet. This would just be on a general topic.

Okay.

So if you're wanting to speak specifically on an application, you'd need to wait.

Okay. Thank you.

Okay.

Mr. Mayor, that's everyone.

Okay. Then with that, we'll move on to our public hearing for this evening. First item up is public hearing for the Syringa Crossing Mixed Use Development H. 2025-0007. We'll open this public hearing with staff comments.

Mr. Mayor.

Councilor Schroeder.

Just really quick, I wanted to let people know I was out during the hearing on June 16th with my family on vacation, and I have reviewed about 80% of the materials associated with that hearing and most of the materials from this hearing. I do pride myself on reviewing everything. If there's a vote this evening, I will abstain. If it is continued for some reason, I expect I would be able to vote at that time once I've finished everything. Thank you.

Thank you.

Mayor and Council, thank you. Good evening. Next, the application before you this evening is, as you mentioned, Syringa Crossing. It's a request for annexation, conditional use permit, and preliminary plat. If you recall, this application was before City Council back in mid-July, as Councilwoman Strader has mentioned. And at that time, the applicant did modify the plans and discuss changes with you. I think if Council recalls, the Planning and Zoning Commission and both staff had recommended denial of that application. So in order to get Council's way in on some of the changes that were discussed at the Planning and Zoning Commission, they brought forward some changes to the plan and shared those with you. At that time, you guys decided that it would be in the best interest to remand it back to the Planning and Zoning Commission for their deliberation and their recommendation on the revisions to the plan. The plans that are before you this evening are primarily the same ones you guys saw in July, but because of your actions, they went back to P&Z to get their input from those changes because, again, some of the changes the applicant made were based on some of the conversations that occurred during that hearing. So this property, again, I don't know if the council wants me to go through all the details again because you have heard this, but I'm more than happy to do that if you would like me to. I'm seeing some nods, so I'm happy to go ahead and continue with all of the details of the plan so we can get everyone familiar with it. Perfect. No problem. Thanks. So I just wanted to mention that the subject properties are located near the northwest corner and southwest corner of Meridian Road in Amity. Approximately 60 acres, plus or minus. And the applicant's currently zoned RUT and LO in Ada County. And again, Meridian Road runs on the east boundary of the site, which is a major corridor for the city. It's part of the application. There is a small county enclave that was hooked up to city utilities in 2021. They're part of the annexation request because when they hooked up to our utilities, there was a consent to annex at that time. And now with this application, the property is now potential of being contiguous, which makes them eligible to request annexation. You can see here on the future land use map that the property is all designated mixed use community. The applicant, again, is requesting, trying to break the presentation into probably three pieces. So we have the northwest corner, we have the southwest corner, and then as part of the southwest corner, the applicant is subdividing that property and submitted a preliminary plan and a conditional use. So the northwest corner itself is more conceptual in nature, where the applicant really wants to start development of the southwest corner, and that's why you see the preliminary plan and the conditional use permit. So A little bit more information or details regarding the southwest corner, but we will start with the northwest corner and then transition to those other applications as I get to the presentation. So, again, the applicant is here to request annexation of approximately 62.43 acres of land. 9.73 acres will be R15. 16.58 acres will be R40. There's 5.3 acres of land. LO, and then CN is 2.07 acres, and that's that county enclave that I was speaking about. And then there's 28.73 acres of CC zoning. Again, the exhibit on the right here shows how that breaks down. The graphic in the upper right-hand corner shows the mix of the R15, the LO, and the CC for the northwest corner. And then on the southwest corner, you'll see the CC, the LO, and the R40 zoning. Again, because this is an annexation, the applicant has provided conceptual development plans for both areas. So, again, on the left hand side of your screen is the northwest corner, which is more conceptual in nature. This plan does consist of 94 multifamily units, which is that are 15 piece that we talked about. Here's the CN portion, the county enclave that I was talking about, the LO zone that transitions to the CN zoning. So looking down at the breakdown, we're looking at approximately 37,000 square feet of office uses on the northwest corner, the 63,000 square foot grocery here. And then these outbuildings are additional square footage. So looking at the total here, you're approximately 117,600 square feet for the northwest corner. I think if you recall when the applicant was here, and it will be part of their presentation tonight, but the importance of both of these coming in this evening was the fact that the applicant is working with ITD on potentially a STARS agreement, and in order for that to work and meet the requirements for ITD, the projects have to be looked at as a single project holistically, and that's where the the comp plan and the STARS agreement may not align. But again, that's something that I'll dive into a little bit more in my presentation, but at least wanted to remind the council of that conversation during the last hearing. And then transitioning to the concept plan for the southern portion, you can see it has less commercial than the northwest corner, approximately about 30,000 square feet. And then there's about 7,800 square feet of office. And then this is where the Southwest corner is more residential heavy than the North Northwest corner. So this site plan here shows approximately 302 multifamily units on this site. Again, that was another topic of discussion in the staff report. If you recall. the mixed use principles for the mixed use community designation. One of the requirements is that we can't look at this holistically because there's an arterial roadway that bifurcates the project. And so essentially what the applicant has done is wanting you to look at this, but by doing so, they're basically spanning the density across both projects in order to account for the 302 units on this site. And so if you look at it that way, they technically could feasibly meet the density requirements of the MUC area. But if it's bifurcated like the policy in the comp plan says, then this site exceeds the acreage for the residential component and it exceeds the density requirement of the comprehensive plan as well. So there's kind of two things working against them on the southwest corner of the site. Again, it's part of the mixed use standards. The applicant is to provide quasi-public open space. And you can see here the applicant is providing for the northwest corner. This exhibit shows that they're providing approximately 23% for the northwest corner. And then on the southwest corner, it's about 11.4% for a total of 18% combined between both projects. Another important component between mixed-use developments is walkability. Typically, when we have these larger mixed-use developments, we do require the applicants to provide a pedestrian circulation plan. This is how they're demonstrating compliance with those comp plan policies. You can see here how they're showing how it's one integrated development. I remember at the city council hearing, mayor brought up the issue of the offsite collector road in the southwest corner of the development. And it was discussed that this is one of the major components of kind of the mixed use principles is that there's unity or integration between the transportation elements, not only for vehicles, but also for pedestrians and bicyclists. some of the concerns that were raised during the hearing whether or not when was the timing of this road going to happen, particularly since it was an off-site improvement. I know working with the applicant, they reached out to the property owner that controls the construction of that roadway because they own the land and they're more than willing to work with Hawkins and allow them to build the road as part of their phase one. That was also a requirement of the fire department in order to support that amount of density on this roadway. That access has to be provided in an order for them to do that so again tonight is a recommendation for denial, so there aren't any conditions of approval for you to take under consideration, but. If Council has deliberations on those topics that will be one consideration that I would encourage you to discuss as we move forward through the hearing process. The other components for mixed use are integration of uses and a mix of three land use types. So you can see here on the northwest corner, they do have the residential, they have the employment slash office, and then they have some of the retail as well. Again, there aren't any end users identified. This is the applicant trying to meet the principles or the policies of the concept plan and trying to set a concept plan in place that can work for them and their tenants as they come online, but they're actively seeking tenants to locate to this location. Here's some of the perspectives for you as well, as far as their plaza areas to kind of coordinate or integrate with the quasi public uses. I think, again, a lot of this was shown to you back in July. lot of the plaza areas are centrally located at the intersections and then at least on the northwest corner a lot of the quasi public open space is oriented through more through the multi-family because of the Williams pipeline that runs through the site and the multi-use pathway that's required for the master's pathways plan but And then on this again on the southwest corner, the applicant is trying to go tie in that Plaza areas to more of the closet public uses that are located here at this intersection. Again, as I mentioned, this southwest corner, the applicant is proposing to subdivide the property. The plat itself consists of 10 lots, if I'm not mistaken. You can see the access and the requirements, and then the conditional use permit is for that 302 multifamily units that we talked about here. Again, there's a private road. One of the waivers before you this evening is for that write-in, write-out access to Meridian Road. As you recall, that does require approval from ITD for you guys, and then you guys can either grant that waiver and allow that access. And looking at the record, I know working with ITD, they have allowed that write-in, write-out access. So again, that's one of the waiver requirements for you this evening. that we need to have you take under consideration. With multifamily developments, we do require open space and common open space and amenities as well. outside of the open space for the quasi public quasi uses or open space the applicant is also providing their own amenities in open space for the multi-family portion of the site so again based on the unit count the applicant is required to provide 1.82 acres of land and this plan before you the applicant is providing approximately 4.84 acres so quite a bit more than what is required By the UDC. So staff has evaluated the multifamily standards. And again, the applicant does meet a lot of those site amenities, open space requirements. One of the waivers that is also as part of the multifamily development is typically which if there's open space adjacent to a collector roadway, which is this is the along the west boundary is hermitite, which will be a collector roadway. We require a waiver to allow that to occur. There has to be a physical barrier to separate that, so we can separate that from the landscape buffer. The applicant's asking for the council to waive that. They think it's better integrated not to have it fenced off or bermed and physically separated from the open space that they're trying to achieve. They think it hurts the aesthetic of the development, and they want to integrate that open space for the multifamily portion of the development with that collector roadway system. So, as I mentioned to you, this was in front of the Planning and Zoning Commission in the beginning of August. They did recommend denial of the applications again. There was quite a bit of testimony. There's some neighbors that testified during the hearing, some of the concerns around noise and traffic generation. Some of the neighbors that live in the Stapleton subdivision to the north were concerned about transition between the multifamily and their single-story homes. They thought there was too much, there wasn't adequate transition between the heights of the buildings. They're concerned about the noise caused by the development as well. And then there was also a gentleman that owns the Allure subdivision to the south, and he had concerns with... The previous development plan had smaller buildings and more open space along the southern boundary of the site, along the Allure subdivision. And he testified that he'd like the applicant to provide better transition. Again, these are three-story structures right up against single-family homes. He liked the previous scale of the buildings and the open space that was provided on the previous plan. KEY ITEMS OF DISCUSSION BY THE COMMISSION. AGAIN, THEY WERE STILL OF THE OPINION THAT THE PROJECT DID NOT ALIGN WITH A LOT OF THE POLICIES OF THE MIXED USE PRINCIPLE, THE MIXED USE COMMUNITY GUIDELINES, COMPLANT DESIGNATION. THEY WEREN'T SUPPORTIVE OF THE QUASI PUBLIC PARK. THEY DIDN'T LIKE HOW THE TWO SITES INTEGRATED FOR THE QUASI PUBLIC PARK AND THIS LOCATION HERE. I didn't think it met the intent of the the COMP plan. They weren't supportive of this being viewed as one development for development purposes, they felt like the the policy and the COMP plan was pretty specific to as to the requirement between bifurcating the properties between the two within arterial street is pretty clear in the COMP plan that they should be independent of one another. And I think we discussed this a little bit if I recall, we did discuss this at the previous city council hearing it's keep in mind it's. You have to go across the street to get to services and that's why the intent of the comp line is to make sure that each one of these nodes are. kind of self-contained, providing that mix of uses so that residents don't have to cross major arterials or walk or bike across major arterials. And that was one of the comments that the mayor brought up is why it was so critical to have that collector roadway, because that's where you could see a light. That's where you could see a pedestrian crosswalk to get residents or bicyclists across that major arterial roadway. And that's why the applicant went back. TO THAT PROPERTY OWNER AND WAS ABLE TO WORK WITH THEM AND NEGOTIATE WITH THEM ON BUILDING THAT OFF-SITE IMPROVEMENT AS SUGGESTED. AND THEN ALSO THEY WEREN'T SUPPORTIVE OF THE TRANSITION BETWEEN THREE STORIES AND THE ONE STORIES NEXT TO THE STAPLETON SUBDIVISION AS I MENTIONED. SO AGAIN I'VE KIND OF MENTIONED THOSE TWO RECOMMENDATIONS OR THOSE TWO WAIVERS THAT ARE ON YOUR PLATE THIS EVENING. Dave Kuntz, Again, there are no conditions of approval for you to take under consideration if again I mentioned, if the Commission or the Council entertains. Dave Kuntz, The potential of that staff would request that the project be continued to allow staff to work with the applicant and bring forward appropriate conditions of approval for you to to act on again planning is zoning Commission staff both recommended and now i'll conclude my presentation Stanford any questions you may have.

Thank you counseling questions for staff.

Mayor.

Congressman Taylor.

Bill, if this road wasn't an arterial, would this, would staff recommend approval?

Mayor, members of the council, not necessarily. I think if you look at the staff report, there were still some concerns with other integration and some of the pedestrian connections through the development, particularly the northwest corner of the site. You can see there's quite a bit of parking lot in that section where the grocery is. And so we're still trying to, we feel like that was some of the discussion that the Planning and Zoning Commission has. How do we get pedestrians traversing through a commercial parking lot. And that's some of that rub. But I think if the arterial wasn't running through it, I think there's a stronger argument for the integration of uses and the density that the applicant is proposing for sure. I could definitely say that that does help with that component of the policies.

Mayor Mrakas, Mr mayor that's i'm sure bill, I know in the past, we looked at what the definition of like an adequate transition is for residential uses, how do you think about that, in the context of mixed use development like this one.

Well, Mayor, members of the Council, I think we all agree. I think this is a topic we always discuss every time we come before you. I can think of that Rolling Hill project as one of the more recent ones where they try to do it through building design or you do it through landscape buffers or you do it through setbacks. And again, that's where maybe I'll go over to the overall plan. That's where I think the applicant's justification is, is we actually have a road that comes off of Meridian Road and then additional open space to try to soften that and provide that transition. So To me, the comp plan speaks that you can do it that way. You can do it with other elements. It doesn't mean you have to, there's a high disparity. But in this particular case, if you were to ask for my opinion, I think the homes are far enough away that it probably doesn't present. I think what the applicant's shown here is probably an adequate transition, at least from my perspective. But sometimes transition is also, does it work for internal to the development too? It's not necessarily externally. So again, if those office buildings are going to be one story and you have 40 foot tall buildings next to it, is that the appropriate scale? Does that still transition or integrate internally with the development? I think staff did raise some of those concerns, at least in the southern portion of the development with those being four stories and the bulk and the scale of those buildings and how they transition to the single story commercial building. So Again, there's a lot of different components here, but as far as adequate transition to some of the residential, maybe the south side, not so much, but definitely, I think, on the northwest corner, road and landscape buffers are a pretty good transition.

Mr. Mayor. Councilman Overton.

Bill, I know that you said that the north section is mostly conceptual, but the Williams pipeline runs right through that. Is the concept that we're looking at compliant with the requirements that Williams Pipeline has for what can be built on and around it?

Mayor, members of the council, I know the Williams pipeline has a handbook and they allow minimal improvements within their 75 foot easement. So anytime development occurs around it, the pipe has to be upgraded. So that it's because of its urban settings, they've got to upgrade the pipe so there's not a catastrophe there. I believe that's occurred, but the applicant, I think that's been updated. So that's one component of it. And two is they want to limit the number of crossings over their easement, like the irrigation districts. And the third part of it is landscaping. Historic, at least my experience with it, they don't like trees, but they're good with pathways and lawn. So the applicant will have to do one or two things, either submit for alternative compliance, not to include the trees, or provide, widen, provide landscaping. the trees outside of the 75-foot easement to still get that effect. But that's a very good point. Those are the details that you kind of get into once you get deeper into the project is you have to look for those to see what kind of constraints are there. And with a conceptual plan, you'll get the nice color renderings and all the landscaping, but sometimes that doesn't always come to fruition because of other outside agencies' requirements.

Mr. Mayor. Councilman Taylor.

Bill, you made an interesting comment or observation really about how the comp plan and the STARS agreement kind of collide here in an interesting way. Has that happened in Meridian where the two, you know, our code and our comp plan and the STARS agreements have kind of collided? If so, have we worked through that or is it always sort of kind of actually worked together fairly well?

Mayor, members of the council, they're only at odds here because the comp plan's changed. So I've been with the city for a while, as you know, and there's been two STARS agreements that we've dealt with. One was the village, which worked very well. It's all one integrated unified property. There's no bifurcation of uses there whatsoever. In this particular case, when we started with the applicant, and I think you've heard there, the comp plan policies hadn't changed yet. We did not update the mixed use standards. So at the time that we met with the applicant, we were encouraging them to submit as one development, one proposal, because the comp plan didn't have that requirement. But as they continue to finesse their plan and continue to meet with staff, we've shared with them that the comp plan is going to change. So you either need to submit before that or be consistent with the new And so they really got trapped between the time of the old and the new. And so here they are working with ITD on that STARS agreement. And ITD, they need to be one project in order for that to even work. And they're close. If I'm not mistaken, they actually have a draft agreement to ITD for review. Yeah. it's getting closer to that potentially happening. But again, in order for that to happen, it has to be one project. It looked at as one project. And that's why, to me, that's kind of the biggest glaring topic of tonight is all of those other things are right things. Does it integrate? Does it work? Does it meet all those things? Yes. But ultimately, as city council and me personally as a planner, We want to make sure that we have a good transportation system and we can update those things if the developer is willing to do that ahead of the process. And this is one tool that they can use to do that. So long story short, no, it's never happened before. It's only happened in this case because of the change to the mixed-use standards a few years ago. Mr. Mayor, just one more question for Bill.

Yes, Mr. Taylor.

I'm going to ask you to maybe go back in history or think a little bit about when we updated the comp plan. What's the reasoning behind the, I'll use the word prohibition, of having an arterial go through the middle of a project and sort of separating a project so that you have to look at them as two separate ones instead of one? Is there more... concrete, direct reasons why we did that? Or is it just sort of a general overarching philosophy that makes sense? Or is there something that's really driving why we made that change?

Mayor, Council, again, I didn't lead that effort. I know our long-range team did, and they were probably here sharing all of that feedback with you when they were presenting those changes to you. But that's, I guess, from a current planner, current planning side of the house, it just, when you look across the interstate or along the arterial, if I don't have those uses on one side of the street, I've got to force It's safety. You've got to send people across a major roadway to get to services. You hear us talk about a lot of time when we don't require stub streets to be extended or we don't get across access. And all of a sudden we wall off a development and we have to give more access to an arterial because we didn't provide a stub across access or local street to that development. We're forcing people out of direction to go to services. And that's where we, when we rebuilt and redid the mixed use standards, we really wanted to, put in policies to help, one, try to strengthen them so that it was better understood by the development community. But we're oftentimes we're here kind of debating about how we interpret these things and they are afforded interpretation. But the intent was to make sure that those uses can sustain that side of the road and vice versa. It's not that it won't work or can't work. but that was the intent behind it is to make sure that we're getting services scattered or at least in different parts of the town so we don't have to drive three miles to the grocery store. We can have things right and have easy access to those things, not only for vehicles but for bicyclists and pedestrians. And in this particular case, you have Meridian Road, so I don't know how many people are going to be walking down Meridian Road. But I could see people walking down Amity because there's a lot of residential subdivisions approved out there. And so getting that interconnection and having people get to this rather than impacting having to go on Meridian Road to go out and put more trips on the busy roadways. It's kind of the intent behind it. It's safety and just good planning.

Mr. Mayor. Councilman Noverson. Just a little follow-up on what Councilman Taylor said. Bill, did planning staff ever try to work with the applicants so that we could be in compliance with the STARS agreement and the comprehensive plan? A more balanced approach on both sides of the road so that it would work with both?

Mayor, members of the council, we always try to work with the applicant. And I know Ethan and I and staff, we've had multiple emails back and forth how to massage the plant and make it work and have it aligned a little bit closer. And ultimately, there were changes as noted. But again, in coordination with long-range and current planning, we didn't feel like the changes went far enough. And the biggest hurdle, like I said, the difficulty is really the policy for the arterial street. But again, that's where at city council, you have the ability to kind of look at this and say, what is the better direction? Is it to get the transportation improvements?

No.

Or is it to look at these two different projects and not get that and deny it? And then we don't get Meridian Road and Amity improved. So that's that's we're with you. We're on the same page as like we don't we're not so rigid that it's this is law. You got to do it. And we're always willing to work with applicants, but it is very difficult when you see, at least from current planning side of things, when you look at nine units to the acre on one side and 18 on the other, and how do you strike that balance and say... Well, you're putting all the density on one side, but all the commercial and services are on the other side of the road. So now if you don't have some of that here, I've got to send everyone on a collector road, go across Amity to get to a grocery store. I'm not saying every corner has to have a grocery store. But that's why we don't want that road separating the two things because, again, that's exactly what you're doing. I'm taking and picking and choosing where I kind of put these uses rather than saying it's all got to be combined and function and integrate well and together. And that just makes it very, very difficult. And understanding that Meridian Road is a very busy road and the retailers are going to want the visibility on Meridian Road and not necessarily turn their back to the road and have all the commercial and collector roadway like we envision with some of these mixed-use designations. Mayor and Council, if I could just maybe elaborate a little more. The other thing that I've talked with the applicant about quite a bit on this is You have comp plan, but they're also trying to meet the requirements of the UDC. And UDC wants buildings along the roads, parking lots screened and those types of things. So it's really hand in hand where you have a mixed use wanting open space, you have multifamily wanting open space, you have a minimum parking standard you have to meet, and all that has to come together to try to meet a vision and meet the law. And sometimes they don't always align. And I know internally, we're trying to do that i've had conversations with the mayor that said yeah we've we've got a liner or code with mixed use principles, a little bit better and we are having those internal discussions, just to let the Council know.

Stay no further questions or comments invite the applicant to come forward.

Good evening, Mayor Simison, Councilmembers. While Bill is pulling up my presentation, I just wanted to address a couple of things that were asked specifically by Councilmember Taylor about connectivity, functional integration. One of the things Bill mentioned was there's a large commercial parking lot. I guess my question to you as we're thinking through this entire development is, how do you have a grocery store without a commercial parking lot? The UDC doesn't allow it. like this corner, people will drive to it. And I'll talk about that in a second. But, you know, it's just, I think it has to be located where it is, right? Because there has to be buildings along Amity Road per the UDC. 65% of Amity and 65% of Meridian Road need to be building facing. So we could put the parking on the outside of the development, but that conflicts with the UDC, as Bill mentioned. So, you know, that's just one example before I get started here of some of the conflict points between the udc which is law and the common plan which is a guiding principle um i also just wanted to mention that one of my very first calls was to the williams pipeline to obtain the developers handbooks so we're very much aware of their standards um what they're anticipating there i just wanted to assure you of that council member overton um in addition you know we're talking about no one walking along meridian road we and every development along Meridian Road is installing a 10-foot multi-use pathway in the hopes that that investment will encourage people to walk and bike along Meridian Road. If we didn't think it would, why are we installing it, right? I mean, I think that's this line of thinking about bike ped infrastructure. Anyway, those are just some thoughts I had as you guys were speaking earlier. I'll get started. I'll just start with kind of a brief overview. As Bill mentioned, about 56 acres, northwest and southwest corner of Amity and Meridian Roads, two phases. Southwest is going first. Northwest is going second. CUP and preliminary plat on the southwest corner. This is the history. Excuse me. We've been through it before, but in 2020, we had a pre-app. for the Northwest corner only. And we were instructed to pursue a master plan for both the Northwest and Southwest corners considered under a single development agreement that is supported by the comprehensive plan. Again, the comp plan is a guide. It has a lot of aspirational things. It's very important to understand that as a former city planner, that was a real challenge, right? You have this guiding document and you have the UDC. Every development has things in the comp plan that support it. things in the comp plan that the comp plan doesn't agree with the development about it's just the way development happens today and we saw this in the staff report that came out i believe in april if city council determines that frozen annexation is in the best interest they should remove the northwest corner development from the annexation area until such a time as development is proposed um to create a more firm plan. Well, that's obviously in direct conflict with what we heard in 2020. And so by the time we heard this, this was, again, last April. We'd already been working with ITD since last October or November. By the way, I have Kendra here from ITD to answer any questions about ITD. We have been coordinating. And we can talk more about that. So it's just very, I guess, challenging because it takes a long time to put these together, you know we had to do a traffic study and then. A revision to that traffic study before the city of meridian and that has to be accepted by a ch D before the city of meridian can accept the project application, so you know that's a two to three year process right there at this point with it or with sorry excuse me city of meridian. And then, of course. The concern about density on the southwest corner, which will touch on in a second. But again, the reason we laid it out as we did is because we have a grocery store, and the grocery store just inherently takes up more land. You also want to have your shops, buildings, and your pads in front of your grocery store. That's where people expect it to be. That also encourages more trip capture because when someone goes to the grocery store, they go shopping, they go get lunch, they go get their hair done, get their nails done, all in the same trip. That's the way it should be. That's the way the tenants want it. The residents want it. Everybody wants it that way. And again, I just wanted to pull this out of the staff report. If the project is considered as one, the overall residential density for the project is less than 15 units per acre. and is less than 50%, and that's consistent with the mixed use policies in the comprehensive plan, just to make sure we're all on the same page. So again, just a quick review of what we changed since we first heard from Planning and Zoning Commission. We reduced the number of units by 33. We increased the amount of office space by over, 100%. That's up 24,000 square feet from last plan. We increased the amount of retail, personal services, shop space by 10,000 square feet. And again, we increased it by 10,000 square feet for community serving shop. I mean, I shouldn't say community serving because drive-thrus also serve the community, but non-drive-thru space. So these are shop space, salons, non-drive-thru retail, not standalone drive-thru pads. Um, we also have 18% quasi public open space. Again, the reason you don't see any of that down in the multifamily area is because we tried that and we're instructed that that's double counting. You can't double count the multifamily amenity area and the quasi public area, even though I just want to be very clear about this. There is nothing. prohibiting and in fact we're trying to encourage by reducing the the fencing and Birmingham along the collector road on the west side there's nothing prohibiting the neighborhood surrounding neighborhood which hasn't been built yet but quarries working on it to our west from using the amenities In our project we're not locking the doors. we're you know the pool and the gym will likely be for residents only outside of that this is this is quasi public, I just want to make it really clear. You know just that use is available. Even if it is included in our multifamily cup open space so. 4.8 acres is 166% more than is required. So when we think about density, is it too dense? Well, we have 166% more open space than is required. Open space, I mean, density is literally a function of how large your buildings are, how much space they take up, how big the units are. It's all about space planning. And here, I think we can demonstrate that we more than exceed required amenities and if the required amenities are the right amount or the minimum right amount we're clearly far exceeding the right amount even if we have 18 units per acre and they're calling it 15 you know on only the southwest corner so this isn't gonna feel too dense right this isn't gonna feel crowded the southwest corner to demonstrate this across the commercial and multifamily one in every three square feet of the site is open space that's not just that's not parking lots that's not buildings that's amenity space and open space just to kind of put that in context So another thing to note is that some of our most central amenities are located between the commercial and the residential. Again, the parking is situated where it is because that's where the parking has to go. We are not over parked by market standards. We have been doing commercial for a long time and we hear retailers talk about the parking challenges that they face. We hear residents talk about the challenges of not finding parking. We've developed retail centers without enough parking and they don't do well that's why we're proposing what we're proposing and as we'll talk about soon we need this retail to do well because we're doing a stars agreement which relies on sales tax reimbursement and so not only do you want the retail to do well not only do our residents want the retail to do well we want the retail to do well itd wants the retail to do well so we can have everybody wins basically um here's kind of what our we anticipate the clubhouse and um kind of pool area looking like, and park area. Again, this park is not walled off. There's a dog park. I'm not sure. We can absolutely look at opening that up to public use as well. I mean, it's just a gate. Here's kind of the north side, the functional integration on the north side. Yes, we have the 10-foot pathway. we actually had someone come to a neighborhood meeting and talk about how excited they were to be able to walk from Stapleton to our development. on this pathway. So like people are excited about it. People want this pathway here. They want to use it to access commercial services. And I frankly think that this is laid out in a really integrated, but yet transitional way where you have the commercial uses on the corner, you have the office uses, and then you have the residential uses to the north and then less dense residential uses. There are some town homes up there to, you know, slightly farther north of this. So you're going from multifamily to townhomes, single-family homes. To me, it makes a lot of logical sense. The blue are 10-foot sidewalks. The pink are 7-foot sidewalks. As you note, we are, as I guess we should note is that we are dedicated to constructing that future roadway with phase one of the multifamily project on the south we talked with staff about some conditions of approval that was one of them we agreed to all the conditions of approval that staff and and us talked about and again we're building these 10-foot pathways so people can use them we're actually using a different collector roadway setup where there's a 26 foot wide pavement area and So that's two lanes either direction for vehicles and 10 foot pathways on either side for pedestrians to encourage more use of that collector as kind of slower traffic, more bikes and pads, a more inviting pedestrian experience. Because we understand that our goal is to integrate as much as possible the northwest corner and the southwest corner, as much as possible, right? But because we have a grocery store, we have to put the commercial On one side, we have to put the residential on the other side. And yet there's components of all and both on each side. So why not vertically integrated mixed use? Let's talk about two different trade areas. Ninth and Broad, that's our Hawkins corporate headquarters. 50,000 people or jobs within one mile. 14 households an acre. 17,000 people, 33,000 jobs. one mile of Amadine reading 7,000 people in jobs. That's 14% of downtown Boise, 3.6 households per acre for, for vertically integrated mixed use to work. You really need people to be able to walk and bike to it, and a lot of people, not just a couple people, a lot of people. And that's just the reality of the situation. That's just the reality of what tenants want and what really I think the community really wants. We don't want users to fail. That's why we laid out the site the way we did. I just want to point out 30,000 vehicles per day travel through the State Highway 69 and Amity intersection. It's a lot of vehicles. That's why we're proposing the layout we're proposing. Here are the conditions of approval when we went to staff and said, hey, how can we gain your support? These first two talk about the layout of the parking areas. We're totally agreeable to those conditions. Third one talks about a four-story building on the north side. Totally agreeable. Fourth one talks about STARS. I'll let Kendra handle that one. We're agreeable to a STARS agreement. We're working on it. We're working on it with ITD right now. And we're also agreeable to agreeing to construct Hermitide on the south side with the first phase of the development. Here's what the STARS agreement looks like. That right in, right out is approved by ITD. You're getting three lanes in either direction plus turn lanes. It's a full build out of Amity on our side and then a full build out of the intersection as a whole on the, that would be planned south but east side of the road. Again, we can't do it with the commercial that's on the southwest corner. We can only do it on the northwest, with the whole thing as one. And then finally, I just wanted to talk really quickly about Some of the mixed signals we received from the Planning and Zoning Commission. This is a little bit long. We got confused. I'm happy to go into it, but we have people who say, we had a commissioner say, we need way more density. We'd love to see more density. That's the whole issue that staff is having with it. We have people with, I 100% agree that everything on Highway 69 and everything on Amity Road needs to be commercial. We agree too. That's why we put it there. And then, you know, you can read on, but I just pulled some quotes that I thought were, they kind of resonated with me. As we didn't really get from the Planning and Zoning Commission when we went back, we didn't get any concrete ways to make the site better, to improve it. We got the site's good, but we can't recommend approval. So that's the history. We're just kindly asking for your approval tonight. Happy to answer any questions.

Thank you. Council, any questions for the applicant?

Mr. Mayor.

Councilman Little-Roberts.

Mr. Mayor, Ethan, thank you very much. Probably there's lots of concerns, but my biggest concern is the safety of the residents in South getting across Amity Boulevard. to all the great shops and things, grocery store, that you're going to have. So hematite will be built and cross with a light. Amity, is that the correct name of the road going in?

Mayor Simison, Councilmember Little-Roberts. It's hermitite, and it'll be constructed with Phase 1 of the development, our half on our side, and then also it'll then go on to the adjacent property. That'll all be constructed with a 10-foot pathway to answer your question about pedestrian access, and then there will be a 10-foot multi-use pathway crossing at the light at hermitite.

Follow-up?

Councilman Little-Roberts.

Mayor, so there is or will be eventually a light? Is this going to take a while? Is this going to wait for another development to go in? At what point will the light, because that's not going to be a safe crossing no matter how many great pathways we have until the light's put in.

Mayor Simerson, Councilmember Little-Roberts, you're absolutely correct. I mean, I don't think you would want to cross that road without a light. You also won't have anything unblocked. on the north side until the lights installed. I think the light, it's in the ACHD staff report. I believe, for some reason, 400 PM trip sticks in my mind as something that warrants the traffic signal. And it's basically a signal agreement with ACHD, with Corey. And I think most importantly, however, the STARS agreement contemplates that light. So that STARS agreement includes the infrastructure of amity, the light, and all of hermitite.

Thank you.

Mr. Mayor?

Councilman Taylor.

Ethan, do you have a sense of how much the improvements for ITD and along Meridian Road, the highway, that you will be putting into this and then what the reimbursement amount would be potentially?

Mr. Mayor, yeah, Commissioner Taylor, we priced out all of the improvements shown here. Bear with me. And it, you know, I would, I think we came out with the low-end improvements 13 or 14 million, the high end's probably way much higher than that. I mean, you know, we're talking seven, I'd say 15 to 17 is reasonable.

Mayor Mrakas, A question that you may not be able to answer this one, but as i'm not going to pronounce the road. Mayor Mrakas, Her but the ball about section. Mayor Mrakas, Do we have any idea what was going to go into that area from the developer to the. Mayor Mrakas, West property.

Mayor Simpson i'm currently. And I believe Bill can back me up on this, but I believe it's an LO zone. Is that right, Bill? Or CCN maybe?

Yeah, Mayor, members of the council, yes. That was part of the Story Rock development, recently approved, and there will be an office there. And then they're required to grant cross-access to this property and then tie into the hermitage there.

Okay, thank you.

Mr. Mayor, where were we talking about on the map? Is that where south of, right, okay.

Just to paint the whole picture. Council, any additional questions for the applicant at this time? Okay, thank you, Ethan. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Mr. Clerk, anyone want to testify on this item?

Mr. Mayor, yes. Linda Stevens.

Your name is called if you'd come forward. And if you state your name and address, you'll be recognized for three minutes.

Linda Stevens, 3900 South Lone Pine Avenue in the Oak View Estates, which is just north of the Stapleton development. I walk the dirt road that is to the west of the proposed development almost every single day. And I noticed that I found the meeting tonight because it says the meetings tonight on one of the big bullet boards. My concern, most importantly, after having lived here eight years, is the lack of infrastructure of the roads. that support this kind of influx of people that are coming in. He said on one side of the development are going to be 490 family units. That's 490 people. That's not including the wife and the husband, which is equating to like 960 people driving it out. And then the other side, there's going to be about 360, 390 apartment buildings, which is more toward the North side, the only ingress and egress of these places to live is meridian road and amity road and, as you know, they just finished widening meridian road to four lanes and in the morning for. for at least two hours, it is just bumper to bumper. And unless the infrastructure of the roads is built before all this development, it's just going to be a nightmare for people trying to get to work as you are all familiar with the horrifying road conditions that are now taking place all over Idaho because of the tremendous growth. So that's my concern about this development is the road infrastructure. Thank you.

Thank you. Council, any questions?

Thank you. Mr. Mayor, next is Dale Morgan.

So my name is Dale Morgan. I live at 247 West Norwich Street, which is a street that backs up to what will be the north development. We have several concerns. She very eloquently discussed one of those. But we believe that there should be a barrier wall. our houses that are built right along there right now have a three and a half foot fence before they then have open area up to a five and a half foot fence and that is the road that is lira is supposed to go clear back across the back of our houses up to the the subdivision behind us and And we feel that there should be at least a barrier fence on our side, a six foot barrier fence and one that is a noise reduction barrier fence for it to be livable. If they leave it the way it is right now, they will be able to see directly into our yards and actually directly into our houses if we happen to have our window shades up at that point in time. So that is a concern. Again, We believe that the quotas, it's interesting. It looks like they're trying to put it together just so they can get a number of people in those houses that they want to. And that's a concern. I feel if there's a law, we should be following the law. That's my concern. And then on a lighter note, my wife feels if they're going to put a grocery store in there, she votes for a trade or jobs. Thank you.

Thank you. Council, any questions?

Mr. Mayor, next we have Sandy Griffith.

What was the increase? Sandy Griffith. Hard to hear up here, too.

Sandra Griffith at 223 Norwich. I agree with all the people. I personally walked down your access road, the gas line, to see what was happening. And I stopped and talked to two guys that were workers and went on down. And when I got to there and seen Amity, two lane road with two cars that can turn left at the end. And The street there, you couldn't walk down there. There's a maybe two to three foot ditch on each side of the road with a ditch. And they say five to 10 years for any road repairs. So I walked down to that house, which is a veteran that's paralyzed from the waist down that lives in the house with all the trees around it. And talk to him and his wife's a teacher. And she said, yeah, because the school buses go down there from six o'clock in the morning to after eight o'clock. There are cars all the way down as far as I can see past that farm development, the big White House, and they go stop and go with the light every morning. and that's going to whichever way they go. And so that's no way in or out. There's a big, when the end of your sewer line there, your gas lines, there's a big water ditches and pumps, cement culverts. And then I walked down to the other farmhouse and talked to them for a little bit to see their opinion. And then I was approached by a man that asked me what I was doing. And I told him I was just wanting to see for myself the conditions. And he says, oh. And I said, well, you could help me. And he says, no, I can't do that. And then he scared me because he says, well, somebody, they should buy you a new car. So I left. He said, I seen you coming. He'd been watching me, whoever he was, just walking. But we can't get out there. Ours from Stapleton, you can't turn left. And that's where they're gonna come out. All the traffic and all the people you're putting there in those houses are gonna come out through Stapleton. So they can't turn left. So they're gonna go all the way through our development to get to Harris or go to... victory before you get the light. That's the way I go out. We've had one car accident in our narrow roads already. When a police car and an ambulance comes and a tow truck, it stopped all the traffic that could come in that half of the section or go out. I couldn't get out of my house. And you'll hear more about that later. So it's not safe. We're going to get their garbage trucks. We're going to get all their traffic. And like he said, I bought a patio home.

You see a wrap up.

I can't. I won't be able to have any view or privacy and the noise. And I wrote you a letter. Three of us wrote you letters. I put out flyers. Nobody in Stapleton is for what he's saying. Only two people got written notices. Only Friday, last Friday, they wrote in pencil when this date would be. Pauline made flyers. I put them on everybody's mailbox. I went door to door and talked to people. I didn't find anybody that was for this.

Thank you, ma'am. Council, any questions?

Yeah, Mr. Mayor, sorry.

Barbara Chambers? Barbara Chambers? Oh, Councilman Kavner, did you have a question?

Yeah, sorry, Mr. Mayor. To the last person who gave testimony, she's made a mention about a notice being written in pencil. Can I get a little bit more clarity about what she was referring to, if she wouldn't mind?

Pam, would you mind coming back up and He was asking a question about the information that you said was written in pencil, what that was from. If you can speak into the mic.

That's the sign on our road leaving Stapleton that tells us when you have these meetings. All of the people that I went door to door and talked to, only two people got notice of this meeting. And they only wrote that on Friday with a Sharpie marker.

Changing the date.

Changing the date for this meeting. Ma'am, do you change?

Councilman Cavanaugh.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Ma'am, do you have any photos of that? And I apologize, I'm not there in person. You're probably just hearing my voice. But do you have any photos of that?

You could walk out there because there is nobody. I went door to door. I went to the dog parks. I went to the park. I talked to all these people. Pauline paid $17. I put flyers on the mailboxes and I talked to these people personally. They didn't know anything about it and nobody was for it.

Thank you.

Nobody wants all that traffic. The noise. I was on my patio today.

Thank you, ma'am.

The traffic noise.

Hello. My name is Barbara Chambers. I live at 216 West Norwich. And I'm concerned about the density issue. As we all know, Costco is going in. We already have horror traffic in the area. And there's ITD counts or whatever, how many cars that were stated earlier that go on the road roads and such, but that's not accounting for this huge change that we're all going to go through with Costco being in all the cars that are going to be drawn in going down Meridian road and all the feeder roads as well. So, you know, I think that those numbers, um, aren't very legitimate because of that and because of Costco, let alone all the other projects that have already been approved that are going to add that additional traffic to our area. And I know people have a right to sell their land and developers buy it. put housing in, but I honestly would encourage you as a council to take this into consideration to look at the housing density in all the cars that by approving this high density housing, what it's going to do to our area, how it's going to change the way everybody lives. And I've lived in areas where I've seen this change. I've been in Idaho for 27 years. And I've seen all the change. I remember Eagle Road, two lanes. And some of you probably do, too. I mean, this affects your lives, too, the way this area is changing. So I'm just asking you to seriously think about this high-density housing and the traffic nightmare that it's going to be. Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Council, any questions?

Okay.

Mr. Mayor, next is Cooper sharp.

Council Mayor and Council Members, Cooper Sharp, 3578 South, Falconer's Place. I'm here to support this project. While supporting it, I agree with every comment that's been made by every one of the neighbors. Traffic is the number one concern. And in Idaho, with our growth, traffic is horrible. We all know that. But the only thing that helps that is development. Because without development, there's not the opportunity to get developers such as Hawkins that's willing to front the money to build the roadways or to partner with ITD to build the infrastructure, to build so that we don't have ladies walking down gravel pathways that should not be on gravel pathways. We don't have people walking across canals because there's nowhere else to walk. Development such as this is the reason why... We help our community and how we help our community and how we partner with the agencies such as the city of Meridian to improve the lives of individuals that we saw before us I Just wanted to share shared at last Council I live on Eagle Road in Victory, just down the street, and experienced over the last six years very similar to what this area is going through. We had several developments south of us that were coming in, and no one knew why they were getting approved. No one understood why. We're allowing density while we're allowing subdivisions, while we're allowing shopping centers, things of that nature. And in the six years I've been at Meridian, I haven't had a better quality of life than I have right now because of those developments that went in. And because now I have a 10 foot walking path on both sides of the road from my house to three miles down to Discovery Park that we can ride our bikes with my boys to enjoy that amenity. But all that's possible because of the development that has been allowed between Victory and Lake Hazel. Without that, we would not have that lifestyle, and we'd be traveling to Kleiner Park or to other parks across the freeway that are not accessible by walking or by bike. So I'm very supportive of this project, and I feel like, as been discussed, it is the solution for a lot of the problems that have been expressed tonight. Thank you.

Thank you, Cooper. Council, any questions? Thank you.

Mr. Mayor, Kendra Condor from ITD is here if needed, it says. If you have questions for her.

Mr. Mayor. Would you like to make a presentation first? You just want to go right to questions. I'm joking. I'm joking, Kendra. Sorry. Councilman Overton.

I'm glad you are here tonight. I've had concerns for quite a while about Meridian Road with ITD. My question is always the same. As Meridian grows, it's not just Meridian, but it's the boomtown of CUNA.

Yes.

That is causing such a huge amount of traffic that's continually backing up farther and farther every single day trying to get to I-84. Every time I've asked for what's your vision, what's your plan, how are we going to fix Meridian Road when it approaches I-84 and deal with the backup on traffic, I've never gotten an answer. I don't think there's been a visionary plan for what we're going to see. And now we're going to have Costco out there and we're going to have all that growth around it. And now we're looking at this application. Is there anything new you can enlighten us with on Meridian Road, on Highway 69, on what ITD has plans for?

Councilman Overton, I just want to clarify, is there a specific question about Meridian Road in general, or as we get closer to I-84, is it the Overland intersection and that bottleneck area? Or maybe both?

Mr. Mayor, follow up. I don't think you can say the Overland bottleneck when there's days it's past victory.

Okay.

So I'm talking about the fact that that bottleneck is going back sometimes over a mile back up and getting worse as we develop to the south.

Sure. So we do have an adopted corridor plan, which at the ultimate build-out calls for three through lanes in each direction, dedicated right turn lanes, and then dual northbound and southbound turn lanes. So as we've identified it so far, that's the ultimate plan that we're working towards. Hawkins, if their project moves forward at the Amity intersection, will build that out for us. Additionally, they would build out the through lanes 1,500 feet south of the intersection, and then about 2,000 feet north of that intersection as well. So we do have a plan in place, and I'm happy to get you a copy if that would be helpful.

Mr. Mayor, follow-up. I'd love to see that plan. Now, when you're talking about dual right-hand lane, dual left-hand, you're talking about Overland, or are you talking about...

So that would be from the CUNA curve just south of Overland. Okay.

Okay. What about I-84? Because I'm most concerned about most of that traffic that's coming in is waiting to get on I-84, and they can't get there. It's broken as it sits right now, and I don't hear anyone giving us a solution for how to fix that traffic issue as it gets worse.

I completely understand. I think as a department, we recognize that that interchange is a beast of its own, which is partially why it was left out of our corridor plan. That needs to be tackled almost as a separate project from the rest of Meridian Road. I apologize. I don't have a better answer for you, but it's the truth for what I have today.

Thank you.

Thank you.

And Kendra, how did these road improvements transition into the road improvements going further with the other STARS agreement? Does this give us a good two mile stretch of three lane roads through this section?

Yeah, Mer, that's a great question. So in all honesty, Hawkins improvements are great. We will have a scenario where we have the ultimate build-out, it will taper back down, and then we'll have the ultimate build-out again as we get closer to Costco's development. So there is an hourglass effect, but until we have development come through and make those improvements, ITD just doesn't have the funding to supplement that right now. So you will see that for a little bit. The goal is to fix that, but you will have an hourglass effect

Any idea? Is it 1,000 feet, 2,000 feet?

So south of Amity, it's 1,500 feet. It's actually right before you get to Mr. Percy's property is where that stops. And then it would be the existing configuration down to Lake Hazel, just north of the canal. And then we have the Costco project picked back up. So there's a pretty good, probably three-quarter mile difference. Yeah. Okay. Thank you.

Counseling additional questions for ITD? Thank you.

Okay. Thank you.

Mr. Mayor, that was everyone that signed up.

Okay.

Well, Mr. Percy, you were the first one that stood up earlier. So if you'd like to come on up and if there's anybody else that'd like to provide testimony, if you just want to come up to the front row and if you're online, you can use the raise your hand feature. So Mr. Percy, come on up.

Mayor, Council, my name is James Percy. I live at 1250 Sigerman, Court Meridian, Idaho, 83642. And as was expressed by Bill, my concern is the transition area between the south portion of this project and the Allure subdivision. If the old plan we agreed to, it worked out well. There was two units in this that were there, and both of them were 13 units. 13 people, 13 units per building. And with this increase, there is now 25 and 20. They've replaced those two buildings with larger buildings. And with the extra parking required, the transition area is a lot tighter. It just, it did flow. We've got 13 homes, single family homes that will be on the south side of this project that will back right up to that. And another aspect of this is that the ground level, the elevation, is higher where Hawkins is at. We're down lower. So that's going to give another height factor. And we were pleased with the old plan. If we can go back to that, it will work. It's the best we can ask for. And we are very excited about the roadway that will go to Amity that is a part of this first project because the Allure subdivision needs that also for a second access. That's my only concerns.

And thank you tell say questions. And thank you. Good evening.

Sure. Mayor and council members, I'm Pauline Skaggs. I live at 259 West Norwich Street, and I'm concerned about the traffic flow. It is really bad. Over the past year, the traffic flow on Meridian Road has gotten really bad because I used to live off of Overland and Victory, and it wasn't too bad. And over the last year, then I moved down between Victory and and Amity, and the traffic is really bad. You can't get out of our subdivision. I'm concerned with this new development, if the road's gonna go in the back of our homes, that the noise, and then we do need a barrier there. And because apartments going in, it's going to devalue our homes, and most of our homes that are the fourth phase of the homes were senior citizens. And so I'm concerned with that. But more importantly, the traffic. I looked at the planning and zoning. I read that 97-page document that they had, and it showed that the traffic was done, to look at the traffic was in 2024. And so it hasn't been reviewed. And I don't know what ITD, I didn't see anything about Meridian Road. I saw Amity, there'd be buildup and additional lanes in 2030. And so I think before anything goes in there, they need to fix the roads because it goes all the way backs up to Lake Hazel. My sister, my daughter lives on Lake Hazel and Eagle. And I was going there during the summer every day to watch my grandkids. And it was backed up, not only going, but coming and all through the whole day. It's not just during peak hours. It's. for the whole time. So adding Costco is going to even make it worse. And then now adding all this new development, I think the roads need to be fixed and widened before anything is even thought of putting any development in those areas.

Thank you. Council, any questions?

Oh, and also the sign coming in the subdivision, that's the planning and zoning sign. It had said before August 6th, and then over this last year, a couple days ago, it was just marked out August 6th, and with a marker, it said September 15th was today's meeting. It goes into our subdivision. There's a sign right there, and that's what she was referring to. And then people got little postcards that were mailed to their home address, but only two residents in our whole Stapleton subdivision received those cards. Nobody else did. We had to just look at the signs.

OK, thank you. Is there anybody else that would like to provide testimony on this item? Okay, would the applicant like to come forward to close?

Thank you, Mr. Mayor, Member of Council. I first just want to address the transportation concerns. We completely understand those concerns. You know, there's challenges walking, biking, driving in and around the area currently. That's what This is intended to in part solve this is this challenge is larger than a single development, but there's a couple of things I think we should consider as we contemplate this particular development. First of all, something like the allure subdivision. not eligible for a stars program it will not make improvements widening um of state highway 69 in a comprehensive way because it doesn't have that commercial component this provides the commercial component necessary to do that as well as residences for people that want to live in your community. Another thing to think about is if I live in Stapleton, if I live all the way up north to Harris, and as a future resident of a lower subdivision, I can travel to any of this commercial development without either walking or driving adjacent to an arterial roadway. I can do it all on a collector or local network. So when you talk about impacts, negative impacts to the road, people backing up on Amity, people backing up on State Highway 69 for a mile section from the half mile south and even south of that to the half mile north and even potentially in the future north of that, all of those trips coming to this development don't have to use Amity. That's the beautiful thing about transportation planning is And that's why Lyra is a master street map required roadway from ACHD. They were looking ahead. And that's why we're building that. And that's, you know, we're making connections to the surrounding neighborhoods. Not for folks who want to, you know, have to drive into Boise to go downtown to work. But we're making those connections so that people can make local trips. to the grocery store, without driving north to Walmart, without driving south to Costco on State Highway 69. Look, I can't control what every single person in that community does. All we can do is provide another option. And do we want our option to be the one chosen? Absolutely. That's how we make money. So we want that to be used by the community. And that's why we have all these connections. And that's kind of the point of transportation planning. And the point of the STARS agreement is to create all of these improvements concurrent with development, not when ITD has the funding five to 10 years from now, not when they get funded by the legislature to construct Meridian Road now. That's the beauty of the STARS agreement. So I guess I just wanted to mention that. Maybe I'll touch on Eagle Road briefly. You know, access management is a huge issue on Eagle Road, specifically like the really congested piece just north of I-84. Access management is huge. That's why we've got one right in and right out on the south side, one on the north side. Completely different ballgame. Basically, what I'm seeing in this is the transportation agencies and cities kind of learn their lesson, right? And they're like, we need to manage access here. That's what we're doing. And we're totally agreeable to this access management. We're working to get access that's adequate for the development that also serves the community, the citizens, and the people who are trying to use State Highway 69 to get to and from their job. I would like to just quickly address the signposting issue. We could not get our sign guys out there by the statutory time to post. I went out there with duct tape and the biggest Sharpie I could find. And we have pictures of it. So I think it's adequate. And I marked up the signs. So it was done in time. I believe it was done the 3rd or the 4th of September. I think it was the 3rd. And I have pictures. So I think it's very legible. Clearly, this is the biggest turnout we've had for the public hearing. So people were notified more than the other public hearings, at least. So if that's a metric. But we are statutorily compliant there, I believe. So if there's any other questions, happy to answer them. Got a lot of material here.

Mr. Mayor. Council Member Overton.

Just got one quick one. Ethan, I understand the STARS agreement. I understand the improvements that'll happen on Highway 69. But I guess I'm not clear what improvements, if any, will happen on Amity Road between Hermitite and the intersection.

Mr. Mayor, Council Member Overton, great question. There will be kind of the base configuration will be. 2 and either 2 lanes in either direction with a center turn lane, and then, like, they call it a suicide lane or a 2 way left turn lane. There will be access controlled. So the on the South side, there will be a single. access you can see noted um it's kind of difficult to see i guess i can use my little deal right here let's see that is the single access it will be right in right out left in i believe until this is constructed which actually will be constructed in imminently right with the first phase. So this will basically just be right in right out and I believe we may have left in there. It'll be the same for the one across the street. Because of the commercial nature of the north side we're still working with ACHD on this proposed right in right out here. But essentially you're getting um yeah two lanes in two lanes in either direction with the center turn lane plus additional turn lanes as you approach itd or yeah itd's uh state highway 69. thank you mr mayor councilman taylor

A lot of discussion about a STARS agreement. Do you have a draft agreement or conceptually like you have a high level of confidence it would be approved? Because what I don't want is to do this with if we are to prove it under the assumption we have it and then find out that's not the case.

Mayor Simison, or Councilmember Taylor, excuse me. We have been working, we do have a draft agreement, and we have been working with ITD since we first told them we were interested in October, November maybe. We met for the first time in February. And most recently, I think we met in May, I want to say, and discussed kind of more detailed terms of the agreement. But I think ITD and us both share the feeling that we are going to get to an agreement. And, you know, Kendra can speak to that if she disagrees.

since we're on the stars agreement but i'm not here to talk you out of one but your primary offender of this is a grocery store are there any concerns that the state legislature exempts taxes on groceries hey it's a risk what is that i mean you you hold all the risk in that case That correct in this case as well.

Mayor Simpson that's correct, I mean I think when we sign it we're we're kind of on the hook to come to complete the improvements is my understanding. And you know we've you know. It's tricky, but we have done a sales tax analysis for all of the uses. And we do feel comfortable that those assumptions, you know, we trust the consultant that provided it to us. We feel comfortable with their assumptions. I think we've looked at what happens when you pull the grocer out, and yeah, it definitely expands the timeline in which we get reimbursed. I can't say for certain whether that kills or not, but we're still on the hook.

Just want to make sure that we were all in the same understanding and that and another star one Okay, that's what share.

Mr. Mayor. I was curious like what entity specifically would be on the hook under the stars agreement Mr. Mayor councilmember straighter.

Where is Deb Nelson when you need her? It would be I mean it would be a Hawkins entity and

Like a special purpose vehicle for this project specifically or?

Yes. We typically create an LLC on a project by project basis.

Right. So to the extent that if the project became, God forbid, not viable because of a change, I was just kind of curious how that would play out legally. Okay. um that certainly would be a condition of approval for us and we don't have that was one thing i was taking a little bit of an issue with we don't really have conditions of approval right at this point you have conversations you've had but we don't have conditions of approval so it's a little bit tough to say well staff has suggested you've had a conversation about hypothetical conditions of approval but there are no conditions of approval in front of the city council right now so i just wanted to clear that up but i just wanted to understand yeah like what entity would that be and then certainly I guess the anticipation is that you'd start by doing that, right? And so help me understand when contractually you're obligated under the STARS agreement to make the improvements.

Yeah, Mr. Mayor, Council Member Strader, great question. So this is proposed like our project in two phases. And while the details of individual kind of metrics aren't totally hashed out because the agreement obviously hasn't been executed or, you know, we honestly wanted to make sure we could be entitled before we spend a bunch of money like ironing out the details of the agreement. But what it contemplates is that The first phase improvements would be done that includes. A part of the intersection on state highway 69 and amity. The southern base basically the half of the roadway. is along the first phase it would include all of hermitite and it would include all of amity so that would be first phase second phase and you can actually let's see I don't know if I have it but second phase would be the remainder and that would come along with the majority of the commercial so you know ITD and us are in agreement with that general phasing plan and But again, it is basically completion of the improvements happened before the C of O's for the uses certificate of occupancies. So you don't have a use until you have the improvements, but we're constructing them concurrently.

Mr. Mayor. Council Chair.

Maybe a little bit of an ignorant question. We don't look at STARS agreements that often. It's rare when we have an opportunity like that. And I guess I'm curious, is there typically like some type of recourse? Is there like bonding? Like what kind of is the teeth behind your obligations in the agreement typically?

Mr. Mayor, Council Member Strader, that's a fantastic question. Again, I... don't know all of the answer i probably know just enough to be dangerous so i do not want to provide you with incorrect information um what i do want to say is that this doesn't get executed by the developer which in this case is us until we know we're building the project so we don't for example if we entitle this and something happens and we don't go to construct, we're not going to have the stars agreement inked until we are confident that we can actually perform.

Got it. So you're going to have a signed lease from your anchor tenant that's going to give you the confidence to sign the agreement is basically your rationale.

Yeah. Or at least the understanding that we can perform. So, yeah, I think that's a signed lease with the anchor tenant. Maybe it's the LOI, you know, whatever that trigger is, it gives us. the confidence that we are going to construct, perform, and then it becomes just like any other development where there's obviously a risk during construction that something happens. There's always that risk. That is the language in the agreement that I'm not sure about. But hopefully that kind of helps get at your question. I wish I knew more.

Thanks.

Ethan can you also talk to us the neighbors who mentioned their low fence and the impacts and your thoughts on rectifying that situation when you're creating a mini collector behind their properties.

Yeah, Mayor Simpson, absolutely. We're more than happy to construct a fence in that location. You know, we'd have to understand exactly where it is, but that's not a problem for us. That's just details to work out.

Mr. Mayor. Yes, I'm sure.

Just back to the sign, not to like cause a stir with it or whatever, but just help me confirm from your perspective, you met the statutory requirement on time. It was legible. Help me understand from your perspective with the sign.

Yeah, Mayor Sinison, Council Member Strader, Yes, we met both the timeline, statutory timing requirements, and we believe – I mean, I believe – I read through the ordinance before I went out and did it because I was like, look, if I don't go out and do this, then we push, and I'd prefer not to push. We met the – obviously, it's legible. I feel it's legible. And so that is kind of the two – of the two i think criteria right as you can see it and and i think um one thing that's indicative of being legible is the people who are here tonight were never here at another city council or planning and zoning commission hearing so i mean it must have been legible enough for more people to show up to this hearing than any other hearing in the past which have all been printed hearings so

I understand. We understand. We understand. We have a picture of the... We do have pictures of the sign, though. That's what we have to go on on what not council can see whether or not this was legible or not from their perspective. Does anyone disagree that this is the sign that was posted? This was not the sign that... yeah and what we can't do it i'm sorry I can't have a back and forth out there that i'll have to defer to counsel with the developers here to respond to the information that was presented by the public and that's what he is doing, and we can verify with our staff on but not the time. And this information, whether it's eligible or not. Bill, can you verify the date? Do you have a way to verify the date of the posting or the picture?

Yeah, so mayor, members of the council, I had a chance to look at this, and the affidavit that's required to be submitted or the certificate stated it was posted September 3rd. So that's what we go off of. They provide proof of that with their signage.

Mr. Mayor.

They have seven days per city code to get that to us, and then we verify that it was actually posted 10 days prior to the hearing, which the third is definitely within the 10-day window.

Councilor Schroeder.

just want to make sure uh because the details matter was it posted with the sharpie by september 3rd or was it pencil on september 3rd and then sharpie later because i just want to make sure that yeah um mayor simpson council member straighter it was sharpie from the beginning okay thank you that's helpful thank you

Council, any additional questions for the applicant? Councilman Locke.

Ethan, the mayor brought up one of my questions on the fencing, but you also heard some testimony about the transition to the south and the prior project seemed to have that approval. Now it's 20 and 25 units in those buildings, I believe. Any consideration on density there in those two buildings, any accommodations you could make there?

Mayor Simison, Councilmember Whitlock, we actually, I believe, increased kind of in exchange for adding a couple more units, right? Because they basically went from... kind of buildings that were oriented north-south, but more buildings. I think there were six or so oriented north-south. I'd have to look back at the site plan. We increased the distance and increased the landscaping between the buildings and the proposed lots to the south to kind of make up for. So there were fewer units, right? facing the back, but those units were much closer and had less screening, more like code minimum. These units are actually pushed farther north and have more landscaping around them and what i would propose is that during a ccc you know this become a condition of approval during the ccc we're doing more than code minimum there um and as far as landscaping goes to provide that buffer you know obviously we'll have the fence um absent you know we have that 10-foot pathway that connects the two projects but we will have a fence there as well

Council, any additional questions? Okay, thank you. Thank you.

Mr. Mayor.

Councilman Taylor.

I have a quick question for Bill. Ethan actually brought up a little bit comp plan versus UDC. Does this proposal as it is presented comply with UDC? Or is there anything amiss with that?

Mayor, members of the council, keep in mind the north side is conceptual, so there's nothing really analyzed other than provide 35-foot landscape buffers, comply with community CUP for multifamily, those types of things. But on the south side, I think for the most part, I would have to agree with the applicant. They've worked pretty closely with staff to make sure that they meet UDC requirements, so... I'm confident that yes, that southern portion would definitely be meeting the parking standards, the open space, the amenities as required per the code and the buffers and everything. The one thing that I do just want to at least bring to... Never mind. I'll stand there. I'll stand for questions. I thought maybe looking at the revised concept plan and I thought maybe... I know we asked for the one waiver on meridian road but again the applicant shared that they are maybe seeking some additional access points to amity and meridian so again if that's i know the north side isn't part of the discussion but it would be nice to capture your your conversation on access if you want staff to analyze that further but you can see in the stars agreement it's contemplated to have another access to amity as the applicant mentioned they are working with achd and that's this location it's hard to see on his scale with his road improvements but This is the one access that right in, right out access. And then you can see there's a right in, right out here to Meridian Road. I think the council knows kind of our policies on access to arterial and Meridian Road. So those, again, will require waivers. You can either address now or punt later. It's your prerogative this evening.

Mayor Mrakas, Mr tell us when ever since not too late i'd sure like to hear from a ch D if mindy still online.

Wendy Gaertner, Good evening mayor and Council did you have any specific questions.

Yes, Mindy, could you kind of just give us a rundown on ACHD's plans for the development and timelines on Amity Road, both to the east and to the west of where this development would take place?

Yeah, so on each of our staff report, we have a list of all of our programmed improvements specifically. So I'm not entirely sure what just happened. But we have Amity Road is scheduled in the five-year plan to be widened to five lanes between Meridian Road and Locust Grove. The date is not yet to be determined and I don't remember exactly if you guys requested that as a priority for the next five year work plan. But other than that, we would have intersection improvements at Amity and Margaret for a pedestrian crossing. And what else do we have? The intersection of Amity and Meridian Road, State Highway 69, we have programmed to be widened with seven lanes on the east and west leg, so that would be the Amity Road legs. between 2031 and 2035. Specific to the development application, we've asked them to widen and improve the Amity-Meridian Road intersection with five lanes in associated signal modifications, and then the road would taper back to a three-lane cross-section at Hermetite. And then they would install a signal at hermitite when their site generates, I think it was 425 trips in the PM peak hour. So we would be watching those certificate of zoning applications to make sure that we have an accurate count to ensure the signal goes in.

Thank you.

Council, any other questions for Mandy? Thanks, Mandy.

Mr. Mayor?

Councilman Taylor.

Just a little discussion here. I guess a question I have. Not sure where we'll end up here tonight. I know that I wouldn't be prepared to vote on approving this project without having the staff with applicant actually write down the conditions of approval. There's a lot here. So I don't know if we get to that point, but if we do, I wouldn't be voting on approval tonight anyway, because I'd like to see the conditions of approval written out and then have an opportunity to further refine it as a council if we need to. So that said, would we need to leave the public hearing open? Or would we close it and then make a motion on one? I guess I'm looking for some clarity on some process a little bit, if that's where we end up tonight.

Mr. Neary?

Mr. Mayor, members of the council, if you're going to want to discuss some findings, you probably should leave the hearing open. You might want to give planning some direction on what findings you'd be wanting, and then they could both take the standard findings and whatever specific ones that the council might have so that you have an opportunity, because then you're going to want that feedback and probably the developer's feedback on that, and whether or not, depending on how significant the findings are, I don't know if you're going to want...

any other fine any other testimony limited to just those specific findings but i would leave the hearing open mr mayor i guess i'll make a if i may tell us so um there's a lot here obviously we've had a couple chances to look at this review multiple planning and zoning meetings and uh projects obviously been in the works for some time um kind of distilled it down to just a couple of things that are important to me as I'm trying to think through this a little bit. I've been pretty clear over my time on council about what I think about the comprehensive plan. I think it's a great document. think it's helpful for the city for our long-range planning but also having participated in the development of it um seeing all the different voices come in and and offer their opinions and expertise to some degree as to what that should look like and so for me it's very real in that it's um a guiding document i think of it a little bit as a blueprint for a home or a building You follow the blueprint, but surely as conditions would maybe change, we could adjust that blueprint a little bit to meet the circumstances on the ground or whatever things that we may find need to be changed. So I view this in some similar way where I think our best effort six, seven years ago when we updated the comprehensive plan to say what we wanted mixed use to look like, this is a kind of cutting through it. So I opt to look at the entirety of the what's before us as opposed to viewing this in separate plans as the comprehensive plan would ask us to. I also look at this and see if I asked a question about the amount of money of investments we're looking at in our transportation infrastructure here with ITD 13 to 17 million or so dollars that are not currently budgeted or planned for. will be brought to the area uh very near so it's not five years out or six years out or whatever the case might be so and we know that the number one concern brought up year after year is is traffic and moving traffic and i know approving a project like this brings more trips brings more traffic but we have to acknowledge the fact that kuna is not slowing down there's really the problem is here um really hope itd can help us figure out what we're going to do at i-84 because that's that's really the pinch point here of all this so for me it's i distill it down it's fairly simple um i'm supportive of this i do think it's okay for us as as a council to say we comprehensive plan is a great guide but In many respects, all the different facets of this project do the best that can be done aligned with where that is. It complies with UDC as much as we have the details for that. And it does bring us a lot of infrastructure investment that we desperately need to move traffic that we don't currently have. I'm in support of the project. I do want to see the findings put down on paper. I do want to have a chance to review those, refine those. But that's kind of where I'm standing. So just for purposes of sort of kicking off the conversation, letting the rest of my colleagues kind of see what my mind is at right now.

And I'm going to give you a preview of next week when you get the city survey results. Nothing's changed. Transportation is still the number one issue according to our residents. Councilman Overton.

So I'm gonna, I wanna be the counterpoint here tonight as we do this, but I'm concerned about this project and I'll tell you why I'm initially concerned. I feel like the STARS program and the money is driving this development, not us. We have a comprehensive plan. It's there for a reason. You can call it a guideline, but we update that because parts of our city change and we need to update that agreement. And as much as I'd like to see all those millions of dollars in improvements done to Meridian Road, in the end of the day, Meridian Road is still broken when you get to the interstate. None of these improvements help that. It's still broken. I can go out there every day and watch out how bad that backs up. I think I'm struggling because the north side is only conceptual, and that concerns me greatly because of the Williams pipeline cutting straight through it. I don't know what that's going to look like. I'm not used to just saying, hey, we got a parcel, we're going to split it in two, and we really don't know what one half of it's going to eventually look like, but we think it's going to look like this. The pipeline has caused us challenges throughout the city as it cuts through, and I'm not... Happy nor would I support a development that's only conceptual that has that. I think I need a more solid plan when it comes to a parcel that has that pipeline cutting through it. I think I want to have more of a understanding of what half this project is going to be, specifically because the traffic counts to get that signal at Hermitite are dependent upon traffic numbers. And if that gets delayed for an extensive amount of time, I mean, I know it'll satisfy the STARS program, but I don't think that satisfies the rest of the questions we're going to have about how that rest of that transportation network is going to be improved. We heard from ACHD on how long we're going to be before we see some of the improvements on Amity Road. If you get where Hermitite's going to be and you go just a little bit to the west, Amity Road looks just like it did when I was in high school. Still a two-lane country road. It hasn't changed. And that concerns me greatly. We've had projects we've dealt with as a council where we've had to say, you know, this area I don't think is built to handle east to west what this project's going to bring in. The only thing we're hearing about is north to south with Highway 69. And that doesn't do it for me. I think I need to see all four sides of this able to handle traffic appropriately. On the smaller side, the three-story density up against the south, that's too tall. I'm sorry, I'd be yelling and screaming if that was me on the south side. You're putting a three-story apartment up against where I live. I'd be struggling with that. I think there's... Ways to do less density in a easier ease into where that residential is on the South without having a look at a 3 story complex right next to him. I will not be supportive of this this evening. I think there's a way to do it right where we meet the comprehensive plan and get the stars agreement aligned. I just don't think we're there.

Mr. Mayor, since I sit in between my two colleagues here, I'll straddle the fence. There's an old adage of a man who tells a young boy to bring him a rock. And the young boy goes and brings him a rock, and he says, not that kind of rock. Bring me another rock. And I look at this entire project, and they brought a rock to staff, and they said, not that kind of rock. And they recommended denial. And PNZ looked at the rock and they said, not that kind of rock, and they denied it. And then they brought it to city council and we said, well, that's a different kind of rock than you had with PNZ, but we want PNZ to review this new rock before we approve it. Sent it back and PNZ said, we still don't like that rock. And now they've brought the rock back to us. And the rock has some changes to it. It's got hermitite, which wasn't there originally. And I think that's a big improvement. on this project. We've had discussions about the STARS agreement, which I think really are the only way that we're going to get improvements there along this stretch of road. It helps on the Amity side as well. So just I'm still kind of on the fence in the middle of my two friends here because we've kept saying bring us a different rock each time. I don't know that we're Completely satisfied with the rock that we have in front of us. Maybe if it had a Trader Joe's in it, we'd be okay. But I guess I'm leaning more toward not being fully comfortable with the rock that's been brought to us tonight. Sorry to ramble.

Well, Council, I guess there's two paths forward. There's a motion to close the public hearing and take a vote. And there's not a motion to close the public hearing and bring back other considerations. So one of those will need to be made by someone at some point in time along this conversation.

Mr. Mayor?

Councilman Schrader.

So if there's a vote tonight, which I don't think there would be because we don't have findings and I suspected the majority of council would be uncomfortable with that. I think it's not the rock for me to use the analogy. I'm still weighing it, to be honest. I'm really on the fence about it. I think the road improvements would be a tremendous help. It's certainly of great value. I'm also definitely not convinced that you guys have met the mark in terms of what our comp plan expects. I view the comp plan as a little more than a guideline. I appreciate there are different perspectives on it. One thing for me that I have been very consistent about is transition to single-family homes. And over the years, I've always said I really don't think a discrepancy of more than one story makes sense. I think we need to feather density. I know that's hard. You've been, I think, trying very hard to navigate a lot of different competing requirements, and so I'm very sympathetic. So I haven't totally made up my mind, but anything, I guess my one guidance to you would be, I do think spelling out what we would expect on the northern part of your property is important because something of this magnitude and scale, I get concerned where we might just end up with residential and we might not get, you know, all the different uses flushed out that we're expecting. We've seen that happen before. I'm not saying that will happen here, but I guess that's one piece of guidance I would have is I do think that's important. And my other piece of guidance would be to really work on your transition to the single family. I think that's really important here and I would not vote for this if that was not done. So hopefully that's helpful. I'm not there yet on it. I share the same concerns about the I-84 Overland area. It is a huge disaster. And it's hard because it's like, you know, one developer can't solve that. And, you know, I don't think anyone's recommending a moratorium on all development south of I-84. So I don't know how we fix that one. So anyway, that's feedback for me. Again, if there was a vote tonight, I'm going to abstain, but that's my feedback so far.

Mr. Mayor.

That's one little Roberts.

Mr. Mayor, well, to continue with the rock metaphor, I think the rock that I have is closer, but still maybe needs some polishing. Like my colleagues, I'm really struggling with the three-story then residential in the south. I do greatly appreciate the fencing in the north, so I think we're making progress with the neighbors, but I'm just really not sure that we're completely there yet. But I think if we can see everything documented and continue the hearing and continue the discussion, I think at least we'll get more clarity regarding... where we could and how we could potentially get there. I normally wouldn't have, I would be more stuck on the comp plan, but the fact that it changed in the middle of working all this, I've got a little more sympathy and a little more wiggle room there, but I think we've got some other things that we need to get resolved if we're going to look at this as a whole, and definitely more clarity on the north part would be helpful, so.

Mayor. Councilman Cavanaugh.

I'll try to be brief. If there was a vote this evening for denial, I would be in support of that. I think that this council provided some pretty good feedback back in July about what type of rock we were looking for. And I think that's been largely in line with the feedback this applicant has heard from Planning and Zoning not once but twice, and the many, many conversations that they've had with our Planning Department. I would certainly urge the council to be cautious about approving this because I think that when you start granting kind of a multi-use across an arterial, the question that then becomes to what end? And I think that we should set not a dangerous, but certainly a worrying precedent. We're not breaking the rock, but we're sure bending it. And it's not something I'm very much in support of. In addition, and then I live in this area, as you all know, and there are transportation improvements that are incredibly needed in this area, largely to serve the citizens of CUNA. Our Meridian residents in South Meridian are caught between a rock and a hard place and that these transportation improvements would, in the long run, perhaps improve their quality of life. But I think that the amount of density in this area would also count against their quality of life. So if this project is continued for findings, it would have to be a pretty high road for me to be in support of if it comes back. If there is a vote for denial, I would be in favor of that this evening.

Thank you. I'll just say a few comments from, you know, I could do math earlier. There was five people that were going to vote. I wasn't going to be weighing in on this tonight one way or the other. But I do think that, you know, I have viewed this and I've had this conversation with Planned. I do view these issues differently. I don't view this as a comp plan issue. I view this as a Fed issue. What does it bring to the table? What is the value? And as someone who lives closer than Councilman Kavanagh to this area, and I drive this road very frequently as I take my son, or I used to, he now drives himself, to his friends down this road, and someone who has a grocery store built into their subdivision at this point in time, These amenities change patterns. These amenities greatly impact how things happen. And I have no issue with the bifurcation of the road because, quite frankly, how many people walk to the Albertsons in my subdivision compared to drive? It's not even close. Because people are going to the grocery store with their cars to buy vast amounts of food. On a very rare occasion, when I go down to get a bagel on a Saturday morning on a leisurely walk, do I walk to the Albertsons in my subdivision? So this bifurcation, this connection issue, to me is not as important as necessary. And I think if I looked at the north, I think it could stand on its own as a value add to our community. If I look at the south, I think it could stand on its own as a value add to our community. Does it meet our comp plan? You know, but what is the overall value of the project to the long-term value of the city or this area? And it doesn't come without short-term challenges like every single development that happens in Meridian at any given point in time, just like Locust Grove has had development on it for decades. You know, 30 years, and it's still the same two-lane road that Councilman Overton patrolled back when he was with the city, no different than Amity is today. You know, you don't get the improvements just because you do have development. You may get a sidewalk here and there, but they don't connect to anything. You may get a pathway, but it doesn't happen until that next project develops appropriately either. So to the point, nothing is going to solve all the issues. And if half of this project came back and came back without the transportation improvements to the part of a star project on Meridian Road, is that a better project? Council will have to cross that bridge if and when that ever does happen. I don't I don't know the answer if it would be a better project or a better outcome. for the community. But I think that there may be individual elements which could be worked on to have lesser impact. But overall, I think it would have added a nice value to this part of our community and brought services that are going to mean less people drive up Meridian Road to go to Walmart. We talk about the problems on Meridian Road. That's what they're doing. They're leaving from here. Halfway, either they're going to drive to Kuna to go to the grocery store, they're going to drive north, or they're going to head down Amity, the other direction, to go to a different grocery store. But that changes the patterns. Doesn't change rush hour. I get it. If we built our roads for rush hour, we would probably never do another project in Meridian anywhere because our roads come after the development happens. So that was a little bit of a more than a short statement, but I felt like it was important to state because I think it would add value long term. So with that i'll turn to counsel for a direction on to close the public hearing for emotion or to. Make a statement and ask staff to bring back findings. Or, if you want to continue we'll take that as well. that's i'm sure.

I guess the public hearing is open. I would be curious if the applicant would like a continuance or what they would like.

Mayor Simpson Councilmember straighter. We would of course prefer an approval with direction to go provide conditions and I can say that you know we can certainly look at that southern 2 storey 3 storey building look at how that impacts to go to that's not a that very likely will not kill a deal that's very likely achievable. Regarding the northern parcel. I would just say that the development agreement locks us into this general, these uses, these building locations, these parking field layouts, these pathway locations generally, and anything that differs from that would require me to come back up in front of you and ask for a development agreement modification to which you could say, no. or you could consider it. But just remember that this is not like, you're approving this layout generally, you're not approving some unknown project on the north side. I just want to remind you that that will be how we are treated at the staff level. And that's just the way it works, right? It's not a bad thing or a good thing, it just is. It gives you an opportunity tell us what you need from that north side if it's anything other than basically this. So with that, I think I would be very, you know, we'd consider a continuance as long as that continuance said staff write up some conditions of approval for us to consider. If it's a continuance without some sort of guidance, I think, I'm not going to lie, we have a lot of deal fatigue here. We've been at it for four or five years now. So, you know, you ask why the traffic numbers are from 2024, that's when we got our TIS approved. And we've been swirling in the vortex ever since. So we would love to move forward with this project. So I hope that answers your question, Council Member Strader.

Mr. Mayor?

Councilman Taylor.

Ethan, hold on. So earlier, I think Bill said this, that you had discussed some conditions of approval, what they might be. Is that a list that, and I know council can add to this list, but is that something that Bill and Ethan that you've discussed previously? these conditions of approval would be, you both would be in agreement with what's there. And I just want to make sure you're both talking about the same list. There's an understanding that these things would be conditions of approval, understanding that we may have and that we would very well likely have additional things we would want to be part of that. But help me understand that.

Yeah, Mayor Simison, Councilmember Taylor, Bill, would you mind going to those conditions in my slide presentation? Frankly, Councilmember Taylor, we had a meeting with staff and for most of that meeting, we were under the impression that those conditions of approval would be conditions of a recommendation of approval. At the end of the meeting, We were informed that that was not how it was going to work out. And so we were a little, frankly, taken aback by that change throughout the meeting. So in short, those were the conditions that we had discussed in the meeting. I confirmed that afterward that these would be conditions of approval but that they were not recommending approval. So we're absolutely in agreement with these conditions and we would welcome other conditions that council needs to approve the project. We just, frankly, we've really struggled because as Council Member Whitlock said, you know, bring us a rock. Okay, here's the rock. Okay, what do you need with, what color would you like the rock to be? How do you want me to polish it and where? And that's a thing that we can do in these conditions because we're still, frankly, confused as to what color the rock needs to be, where it needs to be polished, how it needs to be sat down on the desk. so if we can get clarity through these conditions we can then say no that's not going to work or we can say yeah that'll work um but without that we have deal fatigue and it's it's getting tough to hang with this one honestly so thank you tesla taylor bills or anything missing from this list from your conversation that you would think is important if we were to have these

So mayor members of the council, I think it's important that this these 5 bullet points are based on our conversation that we had with all of you. They were based on changes to the Northwest corner concept plan. So except for the start agreement in the offsite collector street. So When we met with the applicant, we were like, hey, there's some here's some things where we can get a little more consistency with the comp plan. Are you willing to do this? And they were like, and we sent the list to the applicant and they were very adamant that we we don't want to change the plans, but we're happy to take these as conditions. So. To me, these were some concepts that we talked about with the applicant to get consistency for that Northwest concept plan. And they are agree with that. So, no, this doesn't include all the conditions that we would bring back to you. There's probably 20 or more plus these. But if I had to guess. But yes, to me, the most important thing, going back to some of the mayor's points is. In order, it's weighing the public benefit versus kind of the vision. And as you all know, the comp plan is a vision document that the community endorsed. So that's why it's hard for staff to say, well, just because you have a road, we can't ignore that policy. And that's why we don't want to give the applicants fatigue on their projects. That's never our intent. We do want to work. The other option we offered was do a comp plan amendment. I know that's another hill they have to climb and come in with commercial and residential and you don't have to meet all those things. And that was another option discussed, but understanding some of the desires of the applicant, meaning they worked on their traffic study. They've done all this work, met with staff numerous times. They felt like, you know, over time they could finesse their plan and come back with something that met the intent. And ultimately we told them, We have to agree to disagree, but these are some of the policies that we need council to weigh in on because they're the ones that can kind of do that and interpret that and take in that public benefit that the mayor had mentioned that goes into kind of all of your, your deliberating. When you look at these projects, you have a little different hat than what staff wears and we understand that. And so that's why we're kind of where we're at today saying, yes, we, We like the south side. I think we've told the applicant we like how that integrates better than the north side. We just find it harder to support the density. If you had less density, less residential, and a little bit more commercial, it integrates very well the way they have that working together. It's the North side where you see a lot more parking lot. It's a little more disjointed. The quasi public use is up by the residential and not directly going through the development. So there's a lot of things. And then the as multifamily here, and then there's another building across the drive out. So those are things like the applicant says, are you, does the council willing to say no, Go back, staff, work with them and tweak the concept plan and require these as conditions that they do no more in two stories along the north, the south boundary or lose that building or no building can be higher than X amount of feet or whatever it may be. But that's something we're. I would ask you as staff member, give us some direction if that's where you want to head with this project. But right now, again, yes, these were things that we think can be conditions that could enhance the north side. But we're also open to feedback from all of you as policy makers as to how you see it kind of transitioning forward. a little bit more. I don't want the applicant to think that we're definitely not willing to work with them, but we are. But there are, again, if the council finds that it doesn't meet the comp plan, then apply for a comp plan amendment. There's always an avenue or a path to take to get to where applicants want to go. So just at least want to put that on the record as well.

Mr. Mayor?

Congressman Taylor.

You know, I think there's an opportunity to not take all the options off the table yet tonight. I think that applicants heard some of the concerns and the sentiment from council. Obviously, there's been some discussion about what would be needed, but there's a lot more detail that staff would, knowing if council wants to see that. I personally want to see that. I would really like the two of you to sit down and for staff to say, here's what council is going to need to work with, and is that okay with you? You may very well say, we can't do that. That's just not going to work. I don't know until you go down that road. And I understand you kind of thought you were going down that road. But, you know, this is not a very long list of conditions of approval for a project like this. I think, clearly, I think council wants to see a better transition on the south side. I think that would be something we'd want to see in there. There might be some other things. And we may very well look at this project in, you know, a month or whenever we come back or two weeks and say, this still is not the right rock, even though we've tried to. But... My sense is that we could still try to polish this rock up a bit with some finer details from staff and you working through that, if you're open to it, to get to a point where staff or the council has a more clear picture of what we're looking at and what we're approving. I agree. Is it a good fit? I think it's a good fit. The reason we have an awkward, you know, the northern side of this project, and there's a big parking lot, because... We're trying to qualify for a STARS agreement to get the funding for us. So it's what it is. So if not this, then what are we going to have? I think this is what we want to have. I do. I think this is what we want to have. And so I would put that out, not to take any option off the table, but have staff and the applicant try to narrow in on the conditions of approval. If not, if you don't want to go there, I don't think the council, my sense, and I'm trying to count here, is I don't think it's going to be rejected and you're going to go home with a bagless, no rocks in your bag, so to speak. So I'm trying to think if there's a way to keep it going to see if we can get to where the majority council likes what we have. And we may not. We may still end up where I think it is right now. But I'd be open to your comments Ethan if you want to try to get very specific with some of the conditions approval if councils is there I don't know if the rest of council is gonna agree to that tonight, but that's that's what I'm offering as a pathway possibly Mayor Simison councilmember Taylor Here's our challenge We sat down with staff after our planning and zoning Commission hearing and we said I

Please let us know a list of conditions that you can recommend that will give us a recommendation of approval. These were the conditions that were sent to me in the email. So the challenge is, if I come back time after time after time, and it changes every time with some new thoughts and some new ideas, how long is too long? I want to share with you our project at I-84 in Meridian where, you know, we went through iteration after iteration after iteration and our tenant driving the entire site plan left went somewhere else. So, you know, I know that the Hawkins board, the Hawkins investment committee is experiencing severe deal fatigue. If we can look at this project tonight or have some conversation tonight about what needs to happen for it to get to an approvable place, we can write those down and Hawkins can look at it. And it's not me. It's the Hawkins team, right? Can look at it and say, yes, we can absorb this. We can do this. Or no, we can't. I think that's where... I see this going. If it's going to be more and more conversation about whether we want something here or there or like the pathway over here or the pathway over there, I feel very strongly that I have tried to have these conversations time after time after time with staff. And it's impossible to give concrete recommendations because the MUC doesn't give you concrete, right? The MUC provides a blueprint, a guide, as you mentioned, Councilmember Taylor, because it's not designed to give you concrete. But at some point, there has to be this decision made that says, does this comply? Does it not? If not, what can be done? Is it, and if, there's just an, there's an answer there somewhere. And the answer should be, here are the six things or 25 things that you need to do to make this an approvable project. And if I can't hear those things, we can't just keep going round and round with it because we will pass on the project. Right. That's just the way it will be. And we've spent you know, I think we spent one point eight million after land costs on, you know, site plans and, you know, traffic studies, renewing the traffic study because the old one expired. So that's just you know, this is just the reality of the of the capital where we're deciding to allocate capital, where we're putting our stuff in it. It can't be here if we can't get to an entitled project. And that's, I mean, no disrespect with that. Absolutely none. I just want to be very honest and transparent with you. So that's kind of what we're looking at here tonight. If there's a list of conditions, we'd love to hear them. If there's a list of conditions that you can provide staff or give staff some guidance to provide a list of conditions that we can then look at and then come back and say, this is the, and then say, staff agreed to this list, approved. Staff didn't agree. I think that's fine.

Mr. Mayor.

Councilman Schroeder.

Yeah, I hear your frustration, and I'm very sympathetic, but at the same time, our staff recommended denial twice, and so did our Planning and Zoning Commission. And I would hate for you to have to walk away from this kind of opportunity, but at the same time, that's the business that you're in. So all due respect, but that's the risk that you take when you do these kinds of projects. I would recommend that you... do a continuance for a couple of weeks, see if everybody can get on the same page. And I don't think it should take more than a month, but I'm not going to pre-agree to hamstring our planning staff's conditions of approval because they include everything under the sun from whether your infrastructure is adequate to things from public works to things from the fire department, et cetera. So that's not a realistic ask. And I'm sorry that that's the case from my perspective. I don't think that's realistic. I think you've heard a lot of feedback. your four-story multifamily building can't be four stories and your multifamily in the South needs to be a story shorter. And these conditions, certainly you should contemplate. And I think do what you can to assuage everybody's concerns and give it your best shot would be my suggestion. I get that you're losing patience, but I think that this is the business that you're in and this is how, unfortunately, how it works when you're trying to work through the planning process. This is an area that's very challenged. It has a lot of infrastructure issues, and I could tell you that I don't want to feel pushed into a corner tonight, and I would vote no, actually, at this point, if I was. So that's just me, but that's my feedback.

Mr. Mayor.

Yeah, I think it sounds like you have something to share about Um, to be fair, we've never been at a point where conditions of approval could be presented to you officially. And I understand some of the process, but, you know, we will for denials here, but we've never, even as council, when we considered a little while ago, we, we were, um, yes, we tried to remand it back to planning and zoning as a lifeline. Otherwise the project was dead in June or July, whenever we saw it. I also think we're offering you an opportunity to keep the project alive because the project's going to die tonight unless you agree to do this process. So if you don't want to do it, that's your right. That's perfectly fine. This is your lifeline. I don't think there's going to be, when you come back, we're going to say, you know, let's do this. We don't do that. And this is actually, I think, a somewhat unusual process for even to agree to it, to say, we're going to give you a chance to go back and try to work it out. So as I see it, you have an option where this is probably not going to pass tonight. And then you've got how many years of wasted time. Or we can keep a lifeline open for you for a couple more weeks where you try to work it out, get some feedback from council, and then we'll take a look at it. So that's how I envision this right now.

Can we just have Mayor Simpson, Council Member Taylor, can we just have maybe 15 seconds to just think about that question?

Do you want a five-minute recess? Let's do a five-minute recess.

Maybe a five-minute recess would be fantastic. Thank you.

We'll take a five-minute recess.

What do I have tomorrow?

Are we ready to come back? Do we have a disposition? So, so what would be your preference of your request of Council for them to consider.

Mayor Simpson Council, I truly do appreciate the opportunity to even have this discussion so first of all thanks. It can be kind of contentious and I just want to say appreciate the discussion um. I would like the opportunity to work with staff to understand some conditions, work kind of with staff to bring some conditions forward for next time, if that works for everybody.

Yeah, Mayor, members of the council. We talked about some hearing dates. So October 13th seems to work well for all of our schedules. That'll give us time to work with the applicant on crafting some of those conditions of approval. just want to remind that you know i'm hoping council will give us some guidance i don't want to go back and forth trying to interpret interpret what you want so again if that's your desire for staff to to prepare some conditions and some findings happy to do that prior to that hearing and get those in front of you there are again keep in mind there are a couple waivers that were discussed this evening and then i also brought up those access waivers so the additional right in right out on the amity that was shown on that improvements with the stars agreement and then there's also a right in right out onto meridian road for the northwest corner as well and keep in mind the applicant does have itd's approval at least of the the two access point the right in right outs to to meridian road so i just wanted to remind you of that so if that's something you want to weigh in um as well as giving us direction on access and how you want to see the transitioning and all of those other things i'd appreciate that feedback and make sure that those are captured in addition to what the applicant showed on the screen because those are things that we are going to be they agree to i have i'm like ethan i came prepared i printed off the email so i remember the discussion very well so uh those were things we did in fact discuss and the off-site improvements and the stars agreement were something that we were going to recommend as part of the development agreement for sure

Bill, do you need stuff repeated that was already stated by Councilwoman Strader about the fence issue on the north? Are you just looking for other things? If Council has any other items that they would like you to look at.

Mayor and Council, yes, please repeat, and we'll make sure we'll capture all of it. I want it very clear that the applicant knows what the expectations are as we head into the October 13th hearing.

Councilman Strader.

And any other comments you might have.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. So I guess the feedback I had so far was the applicant had agreed to put the fence in, which I think you noted. You had already provided a condition, kind of a condition, that four stories was too high in the north part of the development. And then in the south part of the development... I think that needs to come down by a story to maybe go back to the original plan because the neighbors seemed OK with it. Some version of that. I don't. And that's the problem with this request. And we're going to do our best, but. Until we see the conditions of approval, it's very hard to anticipate everything. But those are the things that stood out to me as being important so far in terms of the transition. I think staff needs to take a very hard look at the north part of the project because it is a concept plan and because it is such a large development and so critical. I think putting the conditions that are needed around it to make sure it's functioning well, understanding, yeah, it would be anchored by a grocery store and that involves a parking lot and everyone knows that, but how do we make it work the best that we can? So I know that's very general, but that's what I had so far.

Mr. Mayor.

Councilman Taylor.

On the waiver issue bill, I know that ITD has given approval on a couple of those write-in, write-out, but was there one that Ada County Highway District also needed to approve on the write-in, write-out on Amity? Could you remind me if they've indicated, are they okay with that write-in, write-out, or do we need to, I'm just trying to understand that.

Mayor, members of the council, I I don't think they supported the one access to Amity. They were open to one, but not the right in, right out. So that's why the applicant said that they were willing, they're working with them on that. But that's, again, it's ACHD's policies, but it's also our policy about limiting access. But again, it takes a waiver if that's something you are supportive.

Mr. Mayor, just on that, I personally am supportive because as I'm looking at the plan, it seems like would need those right in right outs to make it function a little bit better so i i mean unless the rest of council can weigh in i i think those i'd be okay with that i think we should have those

Mayor Mrakas, Mr Mayor. Mayor Mrakas, Also share also just want to say I know like Councilman kavanagh and others had some strong feedback and even if they would be against it conditions that would help make them feel better about it are always appreciated to even though you know it may not get you there, but. Mayor Mrakas, Just thought.

seen councilman counter shake his head so must have no additional comments mr mayor okay council anything else that you'd like staff to specifically look at or consider okay councilman i'm again just assuming since it's here in the in the presentation that hermitite is part of the project moving forward we don't need to do a condition on that um on that improvement.

Mayor Simison, Council Member Whitlock, that will be a condition of approval, but that's already, I mean, I can pre-approve that we've pre-approved the condition of approval.

I agree. Mr. Mayor. Mr. Taylor. If there are no other comments, I'd make a motion that we continue item number three, to October 13th, which is item H-2025-0007.

I have a motion and a second to continue to sign until October 13th. There's a discussion on the motion. Mr. Mayor? Councilman Kavanaugh.

Real quick, I'll be voting no on this. My perspective is the council has already granted this applicant an opportunity, both with meeting with staff and planning and zoning, to address much of the feedback, similar in nature to what we provided last July. So I don't think that a continuance is needed. I'm actually more in favor now of voting for denial, so I won't be supporting the motion for a continuance.

Thank you. Is there further discussion? Okay. If not, I'm favor saying thank you.

Mr. Mayor, just before the vote, I just want to make sure for the public, both here and online, that with the continuance from here, there won't be a new sign posted. There won't be new notices or new mailers. So this is the notice for the next date. So there isn't going to be another change to that. So just so you know, since that came up tonight.

But the public hearing is open for any additional comments and testimony.

Absolutely. There will be no new signage or notices at all.

Okay. Okay. Any further discussion? If not, all favors signify by saying aye.

Aye.

Opposed, nay. Nay. The ayes have it, and the item is continued. Okay. We'll see you back here in October for this item. Okay. The executive session was vacated, so council, I think, under future meeting topics. Or a motion to adjourn.

Mr. Mayor, I move that we adjourn.