Planning and Zoning - Regular Meeting

Thank you.

Good evening. Welcome to the Planning and Zoning Commission for August 6, 2026. At this time, I would like to call the meeting to order. The commissioners who are present for this evening's meeting are here at City Hall. We also have staff from the City Attorney and the City Clerk's Office, as well as the City Planning Department. If you're joining us on Zoom this evening, we can see that you are here. You may observe the meeting. However, your ability to be seen on screen and talk will be muted. During the public testimony portion of the meeting, you will be unmuted and then be able to comment. Please note, we cannot take questions until the public testimony portion of the meeting. If you have a process question during the meeting, please email cityclerk at meridiancity.org and they will reply as quickly as possible. If you simply want to watch the meeting, we encourage you to watch the streaming on the city's YouTube channel. You can access it at meridiancity.org backslash live. With that, let us begin with roll call. Madam Clerk?

Thank you, Madam Chair. Commissioner Perot? Commissioner Gelsomino?

Present.

Commissioner Smith?

Here.

Chairperson Lorcher?

Present. The first item on the agenda is the adoption of the agenda. There are no changes to tonight's agenda. Could I get a motion to adopt tonight's agenda as presented?

So moved. Seconded.

It's been moved and second to adopt tonight's agenda. All those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed? Motion carries. The next item on the agenda is the consent agenda, and that includes to approve the minutes from the Planning and Zoning Commission meeting from July 16th, fines of facts and conclusions of law for Elizabeth Child Care, Taco Bell, drive through one and two in the district at 10 mile. Could I get a motion to accept the consent agenda as presented?

So moved. Seconded.

It's been moved and second to accept the consent agenda. All those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed? Motion carries. At this time, I would briefly like to explain the public hearing process. We will open each item individually and begin with the staff report. Staff will report on their findings of how the item adheres to our comprehensive plan and our unified development code. After staff has made their presentation, the applicant will come forward to present their case and respond to staff's comments. They will have 15 minutes to do so. After the applicant has finished, we will open the floor to public testimony. Each person will be called only once during public testimony. The clerk will call the names individually of those who have signed up on our website in advance to testify. You may come to the microphones and chambers or you will be unmuted on Zoom. Please state your name and address for the record, and you will have three minutes to address the commission. If you have previously sent pictures or a presentation for the meeting, it will be displayed on the screen and our city clerk will help you run the presentation. If you have established that you're speaking on behalf of a larger group, like an HOA, where others from that group will allow you to speak on their behalf, you will have up to 10 minutes. After all those who have signed up in advance have spoken, we will invite any others who wish to testify. If you wish to speak on a topic, you may come forward in chambers or if on Zoom, press the raise hand button. Or if you're listening on a telephone, please press star nine and wait for your name to be called. If you're listening on multiple devices, such as a computer and a phone, please be sure to mute those extra devices so we don't experience feedback and we can hear you clearly. When you're finished, if the commission does not have questions for you, you will return to your seat in chambers or be muted on Zoom and no longer have the ability to speak. And please remember, we will not call on you a second time. After all testimony has been heard, the applicant will be given another 10 minutes to come back and respond. When the applicant has finished responding to questions and concerns, we will close the public hearing and the commissioners will have the opportunity to discuss and hopefully make final recommendations to city council as needed. The first thing we're going to do tonight is have a discussion about downtown's overlay district discussion. And we are going to invite Brian from planning to be able to discuss what that means for our city. Thanks.

members of the Commission i'm here this evening to update you all on a new downtown project the effort includes a zoning overlay and then updates the architectural standards manual used in the architectural and administrative design review. i'm intending to run through this pretty quickly this project is new. But i'm happy to answer any questions you may have. So this project is a direct outcome of the Meridian Development Corporation, the city's urban renewal agency, to update their downtown vision plan. As part of this work, MVC identified some areas of improvement. Broadly, topics included zoning, architectural review, parking, placemaking opportunities, and more. MVC and the city council have met several times to discuss next steps, and this project rose as a more immediate opportunity. direction and support direction to staff uh includes some of the following and this is from city council clarify and improve opera expectations and consistency implement work that aligns with a comprehensive plan maintain existing zoning and the point there being um the overlay tool was an option to mass free zones as a means to get to where we're hoping to go uh focus on public realm improvements with developments such as sidewalks implement architectural standards that respond to the downtown area context for that is some of our development processes actually miss that if you don't have a subdivision if you don't have a new street opportunities exist for for projects to happen without even putting a sidewalk in and then importantly to focus on new architectural standards that focus on the city core The work is currently grouped into three phases or components. The first one is the tool. The city doesn't currently actually have a allowance for zoning overlay. That has to be something we have to add to code to allow. The second thing is to define the downtown overlay to support the downtown project. And then finally, we need to update the architectural standards manual with standards that focus on downtown. The context there is we're not starting from scratch. And the architectural standards manual includes express standards. So those are things that are yes, no. They're measurable. It's not discretionary review. Along those lines, one of the requests from the Meridian Development Corporation was to remove some of the current alternatives and allowances we have with things like alternative compliance or design standard exceptions. So provide some more flexibility baked in into the standards, but then if you need more, it's more of a public meeting sort of circumstance. And maybe I'll just add there too. One of the issues we had, well, I'll save that for here. So this was a conversation with City Council and the Meridian Development Corporation. Existing zoning for the city, it's a patchwork. The Old Town has a boundary. The Urban Renewal District has a boundary. The Urban Renewal Vision Plan has boundaries. There's lots of boundaries, and none of them really John Potter, jive all that well or great, and so this the starting point for city staff is to use the comprehensive plan the future line use map the thing we already have adopted as the over overarching boundary here so that's the proposed overlay so the zoning overlay would match the future line use map. And then there's a standards focus area there. That's where most of the work is going to focus. So the downtown standards for architectural design review, that's in the black area. We're not proposing a bunch of new standards for what's largely single-family homes and multifamily on the outside. It's really focused on the core, sort of central to where we are right now at City Hall. It's also sometimes called the City Core. Yeah. And then I'll just note again there. And this is a simple map. I have another one later on if you're interested. But zoning really is patchwork. Our architectural standards manual is based on zoning. So you can have a project on one partial be one standard, a partial next door be another standard. It's not consistent. It doesn't represent downtown as an area. That doesn't represent the context of downtown and that's really the purpose of a lot of this work is to unify the review process for downtown to be about downtown not citywide zoning standards. Next steps here are working with. Working group meetings, we had our first one yesterday to look at zoning code. We have another one on Monday to look at some of the architectural standards and then those will continue to meet within will keep stakeholder groups informed. skipped ahead a little bit. project review here i'm sorry city council is lead they're the ones who kicked this off they're the ones who set the context. We have a steering committee made up of council member, Marine Development Corporation, city leadership. They're sort of driving the project and the work. Staff is working with two working groups that I just previously mentioned. And then we're going to be doing outreach to stakeholder groups. Historic Preservation Commission. Commissioner Johnson is representing that. Planning and Zoning Commission, we're here tonight as a kickoff. Commissioner Stahl is representing you all on that. And then other groups such as the BCA, Unified Development Code, Steering Committee, Review Work Group, and then the general public, of course. City Council Chambers, said some of this already. City Council Chambers, The last one on there is public outreach, I want to be a little transparent here. City Council Chambers, The COMP plan already defines the overarching area we're working with we have policies that support this work already the money development corporation already did a lot of outreach on this they spent several years doing this project. that sort of define where we want to go. This project is really defined on or focused on how we get to where we've already defined we want to go. So while we're going to have a lot of public involvement, we're not going to be doing public engagement in the sense of visioning or rehashing things that we've already done. So this is focused on the details from point A to point B, with point B having already been defined. And then, of course, once we get to the adoption process that will include several public hearings with more formal public opportunity, including putting his own Commission and the City Council. So with that I will stand for any questions and I will just maybe make one more note that I will be back to with more information.

Commissioners, do we have any questions for Brian. I do. So um. Downtown in general has probably some of the oldest homes in our community that are all clustered together. And I remember a couple of years ago, we had a vacant lot next to a house that was built like in the 1920s. And our code at that point in time said we had to put sidewalks in, even though the rest of the street didn't have any, because that's what the code said. So I think it exists. So you have this very short piece of sidewalk on a street that doesn't have any. But it also allowed a two-story next to really a craftsman bungalow or an old-fashioned farmhouse. How are you going to identify some of these more historical houses to be able to keep some of the integrity of Old Towne? when you're doing your architectural standards and putting together a framework of what you want this to look like.

Commissioner Lorcher, that's a really good question. So the project is focused mostly on the commercial core would be the first sort of point. We're not focused on the outside stuff. So that's business as usual currently. And then the architectural standards manual, while it does have some residential standards in it, they're not currently enabled unless it's directed as part of city council actions such as development agreement that says you need to do that for this project. That's not concept to be changed currently. It's something others could recommend, but we're not planning to touch single family design review standards in terms of that being a new process we're adding to this currently. It's really focused on the commercial core.

Okay. So on some of these little streets that are kind of downtown that don't have sidewalks, they're just going to kind of stay the same?

So within the larger overlay, that is the sidewalk comment I mentioned earlier. So we are looking to preserve or require sidewalks now and get that incrementally as development occurs because we don't have any other way of doing that outside of some CBG programs. We have one project I can think of where they didn't even preserve the opportunity for sidewalk. So that's currently being missed in a lot of cases. So that is something we are going to, we are planning to do and we had direction to do, but it could pivot depending on comments we receive.

Yeah. I mean, I haven't driven by to see if this two-story was there. I think I remember it's one house on the entire block that has a piece of sidewalk and nothing else does, which changes the aesthetics of the whole old town neighborhood to begin with. I mean, it was in our code. He could create a two-story building. And I think it ended up being kind of almost a duplex, if I'm not mistaken, which was also allowed in code. But now where you have like a 1920s and 1930s little farmhouses. And then you have this huge thing next to it. It just doesn't seem like it belongs there. And some of the families that said they've been there for, you know, passed down from generations and have no plans of changing, you know, who want to continue to stay there in their old little farmhouses, you know, are getting intimidated by some new development coming in because it's going to change the aesthetic of the neighborhood.

I will maybe note that we don't currently have any historic preservation districts that is currently outside the scope of what we've been directed to do, but I've already received comment and interest in it. So...

Okay, commissioners, any other questions for Brian? All right, well, thanks for the update and we look forward to hearing the next steps.

Thank you.

All right, thank you. Okay, the first application on the agenda is item number 2025-0060 for Butte Fence to annex 9.14 acres adjacent to their business on Franklin Road. And we will begin with the staff report.

evening madam chair members of the commission next time on the agenda is the annexation for butte fence so the applicant is requesting annexation of 9.14 acres of land with the il zoning district for the purpose of complying with the terms outlined in the consent to annex agreement for the existing fencing business in operation at the subject property site is located at 5233 west franklin road and the future land use designation is mixed employment and the future and the current zoning is M1 in Ada County. The subject property was approved for a 14,000 square foot manufacturing facility with accessory office space, product fabrication, assembly, outdoor storage, and retail sales in Ada County in 2019. However, since it is annexing into the city, it will be considered a contractor's yard with ancillary retail sales as the uses within the city. So during the entitlement process with Ada County in 2019, applicant entered into an agreement with the city that they are required to annex into the city once contiguous two city limits and they did a property boundary adjustment in 2023 i want to say to for the southern portion of the site to make them contiguous to the south there also was a recently approved development just to the east that also would make them contiguous So currently, approximately 5.966 acres of the 9.14 acres of land is developed or used as outdoor storage. The remaining 3.17 acres are undeveloped. As a part of future expansion, the applicant will be required to subdivide the property and construct an east-west collector roadway in alignment with the future stub road that is to the east, or that will be to the east. Staff would like to note that there are several non-conformities with the site. They do not meet the UDC requirements because it was developed in Ada County. This includes vegetation coverage requirements, architectural standards for the existing building, and a multi-use pathway along Franklin Road. Staff is not requiring for these to be brought into compliance at this time. However, with future expansion, staff will require the non-conformities to be remedied or the applicant has the option of seeking a conditional use permit to keep the non-conforming status. So since the publication of the staff report, here's the annexation exhibit for it. And this was the site plan that was approved in 2019 by Ada County for the existing 14,000 square foot building and outdoor storage. This is their newest updated site plan. Since this building right here is actually under construction, they did pull a building permit in Ada County that is currently being in the process of being finished. The property or the building that is in the red X was also another permit that was pulled in the county. However, it has not been constructed. And now that it will be annexed, they'll be required to come through the city. There is one provision that staff is asking for you guys to amend in the staff report after some conversations with the applicant. That would be provision C of the staff report. This provides the applicant a little bit more flexibility than the two-year requirement that we were requiring at first. So we have not received any public comments at this time, and I'll stand for any questions that you have.

Would the applicant like to come forward?

Thank you, Madam Chair. Members of the Commission, I'm Becky McKay with Engineering Solutions. business address 1029 North Rosario on Meridian. I'm here representing Butte Fence. As Nick indicated, the subject property, kind of how this came about, give you a little back history with the improvements, ACHD improvements on Franklin Road back in, I think it was 2019 or 18, The city of Meridian extended their sewer and water west in Franklin and stubbed to this property. However, this property was not at the time contiguous with the city limits. So on Butte Fence's behalf, I submitted a waiver to the city council to request that central water and central service sewer service from meridian for the site even though it was outside city limits so the city council did approve that and we entered into a formal agreement with the city that they would provide service and they set forth conditions and this was in 2018 that at such time as the property became contiguous to the city limits, Meridian would notify us that we had 90 days to submit an application for annexation. Because as you well know, the UDC requires that any properties utilizing Meridian Central Services be within the city limits unless a waiver is granted. So we did receive notification from the city that we needed to submit annexation requests prior to, I think it was December 31st. So we did meet with the staff, do our neighborhood meeting, get our applications submitted. We did meet those deadlines and submitted for annexation. My client has been traveling a lot because he sources a lot of his fencing materials outside the United States. And so every time we had a hearing scheduled, he was gonna be out of town. So that is the purpose for the continuous deferrals, which I apologize for. We did receive the staff report. Staff had a condition in their provision C, that had some statement that um within two years we had to subdivide and construct a collector roadway the property that my client has is a legal buildable parcel the butte fence Headquarters is on it, they have multiple shops, where they do fabrication and assembly. And they had they we took it through a county we got all of their approvals for the facility, the building permit was issued through a county we got a ch D approval for the approaches. So what kind of threw the monkey wrench into the picture was when my client acquired some additional property south of his site. It just happened that there is a collector roadway on the east side of Black Cat that had been approved in a CBH development. So based on the master street map, my client anticipated that the collector roadway would be on his south boundary. of his property. And due to the fact that they'd already approved a CBH collector on the east side of Black Cat, that moved the collector north, which then means that the property he acquired that he assumed would be a you know, future expansion area for Butte fence now is being bisected by a future collector. So we've had multiple meetings with your staff to try to figure out, okay, at what point would this collector roadway be required to be built and dedicated at what point would my client need because technically the road would would um require him to subdivide his property so initially the staff had like a two-year time frame and and my comment to the staff was You know, I have never in 36 years had an application before any municipality that if I had a legal parcel of record, they required that I subdivide and build a collector roadway within 10 years. So the staff did work with us, and I appreciate their time, their effort. And Nick and Bill worked on an alternative condition of approval that set forth some parameters of what constitutes development on the property that would be a trigger point for obviously constructing the collector roadway and subdividing the property. My client and his attorney have gone back and forth with the staff and myself. And we're kind of at a point where we're like this close. But not all the way there. So I guess, you know, the best my recommendation to my client this evening was You know, the staff has the definition of development is in the UDC. That obviously can't be changed. And the staff is willing to provide some language in there that if he were to expand his existing headquarters building by 10%, that would not constitute a development and trigger the plat and trigger the collector roadway. Because All of his traffic his approaches are on Franklin road so really technically that collector or baggage road does not do him is no benefit to the beat fence facility in fact now it's a hindrance, because it is segregated the southern parcel for that he planned for future development. So we have a little bit of work to do on this condition. and So I guess what I'd like to do is I really don't want to burden you with trying to, you know, figure out what, what is, cause this is kind of a gray area. I've never encountered this. My, the attorney for my client hasn't encountered this. I guess, you know, I think our best option is to get past this point this evening and, and, and, you guys approve my my client did his attorney did provide alternative language to staff staff has had a few issues with some of the verbiage so i guess we we need to probably move forward with what staff is recommending and then try to work with staff between now and the city council to work the little bugs we have and then have obviously the city council who is, you know, that they are the final determination on what they feel is an appropriate condition. So that's kind of where I am. I don't want to put a burden on you where we're rehashing this and discussing it and, you know, for an hour and a half and you still, know come back to what the staff is recommending because i know you rely on your staff a lot so I ask that you send the project forward with the recommendation for approval for annexation in compliance with this 2018 agreement with obviously what the staff currently has as this revised DA provision, noting that we obviously have concerns with it. We'll work with staff. hopefully we can have it resolved before we go to the council and if not then obviously the council in their best judgment and wisdom will determine what is the appropriate condition but i don't want to waste your time and if this evening so the so the applicant is open to

eventually subdividing the property at the recommendation of the planners and be responsible for his portion of the collector road, correct? Yes, ma'am. It's a matter of timing?

It's a matter of timing. And so the quandary was what constituted development. So my client's question to me, which I did send to Nick, was, So my client says, if I do a tenant improvement in my existing building, does that constitute development and then trigger that I need to subdivide and build this collector? Or what if I do an addition to my existing headquarters? Does that trigger? So staff came back and said a TI improvement obviously would not fall under the definition of development based on the UDC. We would consider allowing up to a 10% addition to your existing building and that not constituting a new development. So we're just trying to figure out what is a trigger point because obviously on the 10 mile. Specific area plan it has designated collector that goes East and West from black cat and there is a project that has been approved by the City Council on our Eastern boundary which would stub the collector to the subject property. So my client is extremely concerned because of obviously the excessive cost of putting sewer water, building a collector that he doesn't need for his particular use. So that's kind of where the rub's been trying to figure out, you know, he doesn't want to obviously commit to, you know, a million dollar improvement. or that's just, I'm throwing that number out and hitting him at this point. And he has a business to run. Obviously, he has significant employees. He bought that site. Butte Fence has been a meridian for many, many years. It used to be south of Fairview on a little parcel. They basically outgrew it. He spent two years finding this property that would accommodate his facility and fabrication and showroom and offices. And so the city council when I came before them asking for that waiver to use sewer city sewer and water was. Obviously wanting butte fence to stay within the city limits of meridian right, you know we want we don't want them, because you know his comment was you know this is kind of my last gasp of finding a parcel. that will work for me that i can afford and if i can't do it here i'm going to have to go to caldwell or nampa which i do not want to do so the council was very generous the mayor they all said, we will work with you, the public works, the city engineer recommended the approval of the waiver. So everything has fallen into place. And so we just kind of have this little hurdle on at what point in time does it trigger that we need to subdivide and build the collector. So that's the whole issue. Okay. I really don't want to put that burden on you because I mean this is a discussion we could have for quite a long time and he's not here this evening and and so I my recommendation is let's just move forward we'll work with staff and then hopefully when we get to the council everything's tied up in a nice beautiful bow

City Council Chambers, Commissioner, do we have any questions for becky venture Mr Smith, I do have one question so you stated that your client is more concerned about timing than necessarily constructing. City Council Chambers, You know the improvements themselves. City Council Chambers, i'm a little bit concerned about the incentives right, I guess, maybe if you could switch some of those concerns of. being overly, you know, I tried looking it up really quickly, but I think in, you know, there's some city that said, hey, beyond, I think a parcel of nine units or more, you need an architect to come in and review. You saw a rise of eight unit developments, eight parcel properties. And so I'm a little bit concerned about maybe if we set, too clear a definition or too you know and not the clarity is the enemy but too rigid a definition that we're incentivizing um consistently just staying just a little bit under that definition of what constitutes 10 of development or what constitutes this um and one of my concerns is making sure that that collector gets constructed. So could you just speak to, I guess, that balance of timing versus incentivizing certain behaviors or certain development approaches to stay under that? Because at the end of the day, we want to make sure that gets developed. So I guess that's just my, that's the kind of thing that perks my ears up a little bit.

Madam Chair, Commissioner Smith. So in the city of Meridian, and in other cities, it's pretty consistent that a developer controls the timing of his improvements. We have multi-phase projects and there are times where the phases may stop and kind of be put on hold before it brings utilities and a collector roadway to the adjoining property. Obviously that is a tactical, you know, business determination, you know, because it's competitive. And I have asked the city of Meridian. In fact, I had a meeting with, uh, Warren Stewart and Clint Dolesby just a week ago. And, um, It's out by just north of Lake Hazel and east of Locust Grove. And it's a Brighton project. And I said, well, so the collector is within Brighton, so is the sewer and the central water. And my client's project is split between two sewer sheds. And so part of the property has to sewer to the Northwest. So my question to them is, is the city putting any timeline or requirements for Brighton to bring the collector and the utilities to my client's property? And the answer to me was, no, we do not have that authority. We do not have that authority. to dictate when that street or when that sewer and water is stubbed to your client's property. And I have fallen into this trap multiple times over the past 36 years. And I've had clients look at properties and then I meet with public works and they're like, well, the sewer's up in this development. And I'm like, well, you know, can you, Can you get them to extend sewer? Could we go pick up the sewer, bring it to ARC? Nope, it's solely on the property owner at their determination. So in my opinion, legally, We have never, ever, and there's nothing in the codes, nothing in the comp plan that says that there is any timeline in which a particular developer or development has to have a street or a sewer or water stubbed to an adjoining property within a specific timeline. Never. They don't have that authority. And Warren Stewart told me that just two weeks ago.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Commissioner Smith.

I have a question for staff. And I know the applicant's language came in this afternoon, so no pressure. I mean, no is an acceptable answer. But I'm curious if you have any insight into, I mean, it seems like there's maybe a larger question at play here. And so I'm trying to understand if this truly is hammering out some nuts and bolts and you're getting our ducks in a row. I'm okay with getting that on to city council, but, and while I appreciate the applicant not wanting to, you know, use up a bunch of our time, that's kind of why we're here to do that on behalf of city council. So if there is an issue, I'm curious if you have any insight to whether there is an issue that it might be prudent for planning and zoning to take a look at in the future, or if this is something that, Hey, it really is small minutia that we can give to city council and hash out in the in-between.

Madam chair commissioner Smith so as you as you heard timing is really the big concern here from staff from we went through internally about it quite a bit before we even publish the staff report timing of that collector really really is a concern now that we are really starting to see development spur in that area. one thing that i guess is important to note and is at the western boundary of butte fence is a different sewer shed so with the property to the west of them there might be some ability for the northern portion of that property to be sewered but likely it's all going to have to come from a sewer that's going to have to come down mcdermott so essentially development will stop until that sewer comes down McDermott from other development. It's going to be at Eustick, so that needs to go to Cherry, and then it obviously needs to get to Franklin at some point. That could be a lot sooner than we think. It could be 10 years. It could be 20 years. I doubt it'll be 20. I doubt it'll be 10. It'll probably be sooner than that. But there is time to where that western property won't redevelop but there is still a concern about that timing because limiting access points onto franklin is going to be crucial in this area it really is obviously b fence they're already existing they have their curb cut i don't expect that to go anywhere because their business probably wouldn't be able to operate without that curb cut um without you know a new road going through their outdoor storage so my the answer to your question is if the commission has significant concerns about the timing and what staff and the applicant have worked through, then I think, yes, you know, you guys should make a decision on that. If you guys think that staff and the applicant worked through it, which I think we can find, you know, some common ground, we already have found some, um, I think that there just needs to be some additional conversations. Um, then I would, I'm comfortable with it going forward to city council and for them to make that determination. Correct. Madam chair.

Go ahead. Commissioner Perot.

Thank you, and so there weren't any maps in the. In the file of this collector road and so is this the same collector that's that's running down into the large industrial development. That connects them to black hat.

madam chair commissioner perot so it's actually a northern collector it's north of the grand mogul collector which you're probably thinking of through the district which would be the existing road that's about right here on the map as you can this one would be actually up here and it runs right through here to a north south collector that will have an intersection right here on franklin so it is a second collector road that runs through other industrial projects correct not not the larger industrial project that was done in 2022 i want to say so Thank you. It's all coming back to me now.

Madam Chair.

Commissioner Gelsomeno.

I have a question for staff, and then I do have a question for the applicant. Nick, has the city ever invoked DA default procedures against a timeline specific infrastructure condition, not a use restriction, but a deadline to construct a road in any comparable annexation? If not, what is the realistic enforcement path if the two-year deadline passes without subdivision and construction beginning?

Yeah, Madam Chair, Commissioner Gilsomino, good question. So typically timing of things is addressed in phasing plan. Typically staff and the fire department have quite a bit of say in that when it does come to the phasing plan. So when you guys see phasing plans for subdivisions, typically it's pretty important because that's when extension of roads and sewers is going to happen, secondary access. which is some fire and health safety things. As far as it being in a DA, we normally set thresholds or trigger points for that. It's typically not in the realm of years. It typically is in square footage or number of homes, those type of trigger points. Like Becky said, this is a unique area in the fact that we have A lot of development being spurred. We have a collector roadway that's going to be crucial in this area. So for us, the two years was really, and I went back and forth with Bill on the timing of two years versus five years versus what really is in the best interest of the city and what is going to work. and you know ultimately we landed on the two years i understand the applicant's perspective on that that's why we're willing to work with them um but it is really that collector roadway to that north south collector in the future is crucial for this area to function effectively um so but if they didn't fulfill the two years we would probably send a notice letter um that they didn't you know fulfill the agreement and LEGAL MIGHT HAVE A BETTER UNDERSTANDING OF WHAT WE WOULD DO AT THAT POINT. I HAVE NOT SEEN THAT IN MY TIME AT THE CITY, BUT THERE WOULD PROBABLY BE SOME ADDITIONAL STEPS THAT WOULD BE ON THE LEGAL SIDE.

MADAM CHAIR, I'M HAPPY TO ELABORATE A LITTLE BIT ON THAT. NO, WE HAVE NEVER DONE THAT, TO MY KNOWLEDGE, AND BECKY'S BEEN DOING IT FOR A LONG TIME TOO, SO I KNOW SHE WOULD SAY THE SAME THING. MORE LIKELY THE REMEDY WOULD BE COME BACK IN A MENTIONED DEVELOPMENT AGREEMENT AND ASK FOR MORE TIME. THAT'S PROBABLY HOW WE WOULD GUIDE THE APPLICANT TO PROCEED. The reason why we proposed 2 years was, at least from stats perspective, was the fact that we did just approve the annexation of the property just to the east boundary of this site, and they are required as part of their Da to subdivide the property and construct that road with the first phase. They're not even going to phase their development. We've already preapped with them. They're already putting in their preliminary flat application. So we thought two years made sense because the road would more likely be there and stub to them in two years and that's where we landed on it so wasn't trying to to do something that was inappropriate for this property just trying to make it clear that the road is important because the last thing that we want to have happen and i've seen this at my time as well is where we have two roads across from each other but they never connect And we don't want that either. So, and I know the applicant understands that because she's done a thousand subdivisions in the treasure Valley. So she gets, you hear some of her challenges she's facing in today's world as well. And so although public works may not have the ability to require certain things we do, meaning planning, um, through a development agreement, we can't control phasing and timing of those things. And we have done that pretty consistently, although. unintended consequences do happen on occasion where you think you're getting the right things with the first phase and then the next property comes in and you realize oh that phasing didn't quite work out the way we anticipate and like you said the city doesn't control every two years you come in with a phase we just say your next phase has this many lots or this and these amenities and this open space we don't put a timing on it so that's i think that's where uh we're at odds with the the applicant a little bit is is really the timing it No, and I don't have any doubt that this road won't get built. It's going to get built because it's going to be a requirement of this property to get built. But the applicant is correct. The alignment of that road has shifted from when she came through in 2019 until now. It was... I've seen it going through the middle of the current property, her client's property. I've seen it going along the south boundary of their property. We've gone as far as we had an approval. Nick was working on the... the property off of Black Cat, and we thought it was going to go on the south boundary, and ACHC's like, no, we've got to flip the whole site plan, and they moved the road to the north side of their property. And so then all of a sudden we're scrambling at the last minute to have the road realigned then. So a lot of moving parts here. So again, I'm somewhat sympathetic to the applicant. I would like to move this forward and then just continue to work on this and hopefully get a resolution before city council takes action on it.

Thank you. And Becky, Madam Chair, Becky, my question to you then is, has your client initiated any pre-application contact with ACHD regarding this collector road alignment? Excuse me.

Madam Chair, Commissioner- Gelsmino. Mino. That's a long one. Yes, I did. I did consult with Mindy Wallace over at Ada County Highway District. And I said, you know, your master, your ACHD master street map still shows the collector in its original location, which is on my client's southern boundary, which parallels an existing drain. She said, yes, I know. We haven't changed it. But then we had this CBH project on the east side of Black Cat, and they had the collector further north. So that's where we required the project that's to the east of you to match that alignment. Um, and which has therefore changed the collector. Um, I guess, you know, the difference between this project and other projects is, is typically I'm coming before applying zoning commission with a completely new development. Um, you know, that, that we have bare ground and we're doing a subdivision and we're doing an annexation and, you know, in, in this situation, this business already pre-exists, um, And so, you know, my, my client, obviously his fear is that, that if there was some two years, I got to spend a million dollars. I mean, that's very frightening. You know, if you're a small business owner, I'm a small business owner. And if Meridian came to me and said, you know, Hey, in two years, you got to spend a million dollars. We want a collector on the back of your office. You know, that would be a significant burden. and there is no history, there is no precedent of that. We're obviously not debating that there is a collector that is proposed to go through this property at some point in time. What we are debating is that there needs to be some type of reasonable trigger that if the property redevelops or he sells off the Southern property for whatever purposes, then that would be a trigger, but to have a hard timeline would be completely unfair to his business and, and, and would be totally unprecedented in the city of Meridian. And in talking with his attorney, Justin Craney at Holly Troxell, he said, you know, that, that is, basically overreach. That, you know, he said, I would have a good case, legal case, for judicial review that this condition is not appropriate because whatever exactions are stipulated on this annexation must be consistent with the impact of the project. And the impact of my project isn't changing. It's the same. We're a low traffic generator, butte fence. You see what I'm saying? So, you know, there has to be, you know, based on US Supreme Court cases that, you know, there has to be a proportionality, they call it, on what you impose on a development versus what it is imposing on the community or the transportation system. In this situation, there is absolute, my client's existing development does not warrant nor need this package road at all. So it doesn't meet that test of proportionality.

I want to play devil's advocate here for a second. Because everybody's friends until there's money involved, right? And we're talking about a lot of money to build a collector room. Yes. And the city of Meridian needs the connectivity to be able to continue to make our city work well. regardless of the timeframe, we don't have a crystal ball. He may subdivide and say, well, I don't need the Southern portion. I'm going to sell it to a sprinkler guy who, you know, and then he's got his own business. And right now you might not need the Southern road to move your trucks, but, uh, you know, it might be nice to have a secondary access so you can get bigger trucks in where Franklin road might not be able to accommodate that. So, um, question for staff and I understand where planners are coming from is that once the annexation is granted and Butte fence is in the city and it has the property. There's not a lot of mechanisms for the city to come back and say, okay, it's now time. Here's the trigger for you to build the road. And Butte fence says, well, I still can't afford it. And so then we've got this disconnect between the east and the west property. So for staff, as far as a mechanism, I'm just asking this because it just came to me. Can we revoke the occupancy license if they choose not to build the fence? Or is there no mechanism once the annexation is granted and he has the property and chooses not to build it for whatever reason? We're going to use good faith that it'll happen. But like I said, everybody's friends until there's money involved. And it might come to a point where People aren't getting vinyl fences and he can't afford it. Is there any mechanism that the city can require him at the time where the triggers here and now that they have to go forward?

Adam chair members of the Commission so I'm understanding the question correctly now is the time to get those triggers in place and those mechanisms in place with the development agreement if at the time let's say they do an expansion it exceeds the 10% and he is in not he violates the development agreement at that point yes there's probably some mechanisms that we can do and would I are we gonna go you know red tag is building and get the occupancy out of there i don't know if we would say we'd go that far but yes that's when we would start the conversations with them and say hey this you've exceeded your 10 or you've developed on the southern portion south of the collector now's your time you have to build a collector that's correct so there would be letters sent and there would be notices meetings had and we would it would have to happen at that point that is correct that is now is the time to get those mechanisms with that development agreement madam chair i i believe what staff has prepared

is protecting the city because it is defining what constitutes development. So if he decides he wants to build a 20,000-square-foot new fabrication building, that would trigger the subdivision and the road improvement. So staff is protecting the city. They are protecting the 10-mile specific area plan. and providing provisions that will trigger those improvements. And you're arguing that the two-year timeline is restrictive? Right. And staff has agreed, and they have taken that out of that condition. Okay. They've revised. I believe Nick has revised that condition, and then he's defined what is development, what would trigger improvement, that we need to subdivide the property, build the collector. Gotcha. And so that's where we are now. So as far as is my client completely comfortable with this condition? The answer is no. However, I would like, like I said, to get past this point, staff is comfortable with this. It does have the same, uh, goal.

Right.

Um, and then if my client and his attorney can work with staff and the city attorney and, you know, refine this to protect the city, to protect my client, I think that's all they're looking for is that everybody's protected and, and that, you know, that, that, This doesn't reach a point where we're at odds.

Commissioners, do we have any other questions for Becky before we open it to public testimony?

Thank you.

All right. Thank you very much. I appreciate your patience with us. Madam Clerk, do we have anybody signed up to testify?

Thank you, Madam Chair. I have Mark Jang that signed up online. They are in the room or online. Can you raise your hand? Okay, so that might have been an error other than that name, no one else has signed up.

or anybody in chambers that would like to speak on this. On this application. becky do you have any other final words are you good. i'm. Can I get a motion to close the public hearing?

So moved. Seconded.

It's been moved and seconded to close the public hearing on application 2025-0060, Butte Fence. All those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Any nays? Motion carries. You know, things change, and it'll change again. And it'll continue to change because this is a growth area. This was originally approved by Ada County and their rules of engagement are a little bit different than the city of Meridians. And it's unfortunate that, you know, one development to the east has kind of changed the trajectory of the street that, you know, makes this road bisecting his property as opposed to, um, skimming the outside of it. But I also understand from the city's perspective that if we don't put mechanisms in place to be able to get the road, then you're on, you're on pavement and then dirt and nothing connects. So, um, I think we need to trust the process and the good faith of the, um, the applicant and the, um, the company Butte fence has been, uh, in Meridian for a long time and I don't see them going away anytime soon. And, and, uh, We'll need to, at least from my perspective, trust the fact that they will honor their agreement with this. We can add this DA provision to go forward to city council.

Yep, Madam Chair.

Commissioner Smith.

Yeah, as much as the, I guess I'm a Georgist at heart, as much as that part of me kind of, bristles at maybe disincentivizing, making, you know, incentivizing dormant land a little bit. I trust staff and their discretion, and it seems like they're comfortable with sorting this out.

Madam Chair. Commissioner Perot. So I'm not super familiar with the details of the project to the east, but I'm somewhat disappointed that there wasn't know really involved conversation with this property owner on that change to the collector roadway and this is where we always are encouraging um applicants to go to their neighbors and talk to the neighboring property owners so that we don't run into this kind of issue in the future so um i'm sorry that that's property owners kind of had to go through that and not really potentially had you know as much of a voice in in that um in where that collector roadway is gonna go, it takes everybody. But regarding the revised DA provision, I think that I have no concerns about changes to the language in it. So I think, yeah, I think we should move forward.

Madam Chair.

Commissioner Smith.

After considering all staff, applicant, and public testimony, I move to recommend approval to the City Council of file number H-2025-0060 as presented in the staff report with a modification to amend provision C to align with the language provided by staff on the slide presented to us and in our briefing materials for this evening. Seconded.

It's been moved and seconded to approve Send Butte Fence on to City Council. All those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed? Motion carries. Thanks, Becky, for your patience. The next item on the agenda is item number H2026-0011, Rackham Microhospital requests a modified development agreement, a conditional use permit, and a preliminary plat at Eagle and Overland Road. And we will begin with the staff report.

Thank you, Madam Chair, Commission members. So we are here. So this site consists of 5.21 acres of land. It's currently zoned CG. It's located in the southeast corner of North Eagle Road and Overland Road. So a little background on this. So approximately 9.06 acres of land was annexed and zoned CG and service, CG from RUT. and R1 in Ada County in 2008 to be developed with a retail and restaurant uses in the future. Concurrently, the applicant requested to vacate the existing right of way of South Rackham Way. Approval of the proposed vacation application would allow the applicant to do a land swap with ACHD and reconstruct Rackham Way to Overland future I'm sorry, further to the east. The site was vacant except for an ACHD parking lot on the northern portion of the annexation area. The parking lot was proposed to remain. So this is the ACHD parking lot that we were talking about. So they are requesting the modification of the existing development agreement to update certain provisions, the conceptual site plan, building elevations, and do a conditional use permit to construct a 24,000 square foot hospital, a preliminary plan consisting of two buildable lots and one common lot. So the micro hospital with services will include a full emergency department with 10 exam rooms, including one trauma room and one isolation room, a full imaging department with x-ray, CT scan and MRI. There will be eight overnight patient beds for anyone requiring an overnight or longer stay. The applicant stated there will be about eight employees and anticipate a daily high of 30 to 50 patrons with an average of 20 to 30 patrons per day. Oops. The hospital will be one story in height with landscape and surrounding the perimeter. The main entrance for patients and pickup drop off is on the west side of the building. A separate ambulance pickup drop off area is provided on the south side of the building. So the applicant stated that the facility has less than 1% of the patients arrive or leave via ambulance. The majority of the ambulance trips to the facility will be when a patient is leaving. or being transferred to another larger emergency care facility like St. Alphonsus or St. Luke's. The applicant states that the hospital is a concierge patient choice type facility, often preferred over general hospitals for less urgent specific patron needs. So access to this facility will be from the realigned Rackham Way, which will be restricted to ambulances and patrons traveling to the site. Eastbound traffic extended development will be directed to use Silverstone Way. According to ACHD, the intersection of Eagle Road and Overland cannot be reconfigured to accommodate U-turn movements. And staff is requiring that the existing attached sidewalks that are along Overland Road be removed and a detached multi-use pathway be installed, which will be along Eagle Road and Overland. And then the pathway along Eagle Road will be required to curve here to meet Rackham. which will have a five-foot sidewalk along Rackham Way. The hours of business for this, hours of operations for this business will be 24 hours. Within the CC and CG districts, hours of operations are limited to 6 to 11 p.m. when they abut a residential district, but this property does not abut a residential district, so they are allowed to operate 24 hours. They will have to meet the specific requirements for hospitals per our UDC. They are required to provide one parking stall for every 500 gross square feet of area. So they have provided 57 parking spots, which exceeds the requirement. And so they did provide some building elevations for the hospital, and this will have to go through design review. And this application will also have to go through CCC for the project prior to getting a building permit. And some of the... So this is like the, um, they have to vacate the right away. So this is the current right away for Rackham. So they want to vacate this and realign the roadway this way, pushing it further to the east, which meets ACHD requirements. They have to get a flood, um, plane, um, permit because of the location of the project. It is within the floodplain. And this is the I just wanted to compare this is like what is being posed for the concept plan and this is the existing concept plan within the existing concept plan the buildings could only be 20,000 square feet and the new proposal is requesting that they are 25,000 square feet. The provisions that they are proposing to amend within the DA is changing the square footage for the buildings. They're not modifying anything else within that provision. And they are proposing to remove provision 5.1.9, which takes away the proportionate share for a bridge across the Five Mile Creek, but that has already been constructed and already paid for, so that doesn't need to be there. So we also are removing the provision for 5.1.11, which talks about the Stub Road. So that wasn't required. So that provision is no longer needed in that DA. And something that staff wanted to bring to your attention was the issue that we have and the Council will have to make a determination whether or not it meets the intent of the requirement because the specific use standards for hospitals states that hospitals have to take direct access to an arterial. This one doesn't exactly take direct access to arterial. That is something that council will have to determine whether or not this meets the intent of our standards. We did have received written testimony today from Brett Rumbeck. He's a member of the Idaho Association of Health Plans. He has concerns regarding traffic and infrastructure adequacy, internal consistency of the application record and compatibility with the surrounding area. He feels that a traffic study should have been required and the applicant is not forthcoming regarding the use of law too. So based on what's in the area, um, it's mostly commercial and, um, and commissioner Perot, I did get your email. It was forwarded to me. So I just wanted to, um, address the concerns in the applicants. Um, so a traffic study wasn't done in this area because basically these roads are built out to capacity. And as far as mitigation that would be required. So ACHD did require the applicant to provide dedicate right away along here to make that from the center line 74 feet and they're adding that turn lane there. So that was the mitigation that they require for that because it is built out to capacity at this point. And ITD does not have jurisdiction over this section. So it is under ACHD's jurisdiction. So ITD had no comments on that. And as far as the inconsistency, they were saying that there was a retail drive-thru that was shown in the geotech report. Um, the sunset planned and the site plans that we approved don't show a drive through. So we don't have anything that shows a drive through. If they were trying to propose a drive through there, the drive through would, um, depending on the type of drive through that they were showing us, it would be either be coming to you or coming to you and city council if it was a tier two or tier three drive through. So if it was a bank, no, but if it was anything other than that, it would be coming back before um, commissioned or going to commission and city council. And then for the, um, I can't answer the operation portion for the hospital. I will let the applicant address that when they come up. Um, and then, um, As far as the change in use from the previous, yes, it did change from what was being proposed before, which was more retail restaurant type things. They are asking the commission to recommend to council whether or not the request to modify the existing DA and create this new DA for the proposed preliminary path and micro hospital is appropriate. So you guys get to make that recommendation to city council, whether or not, Based on the current da what was proposed is more appropriate than what they are proposing tonight. Just wanted to address those. So and based on that staff did recommend approval with conditions outlined in the staff report and then with that I will be happy to send for any questions that you have on this.

Would the applicant like to come forward?

Hi, it's Kelly Spath 1100 West Idaho Street Suite 210. I had forwarded my presentation earlier today. Okay, perfect. Thanks. Beautiful. Thank you for having us tonight. I'm here tonight to talk about aligned subdivision and microhospital. Like I just mentioned, my name is Kelly Spath, and I'm with Kimley Horne, and we'll be handling the entitlements and planning portions of this project. Also with Kimley Horne is Ian Conner, and he will be the engineer for this project. He's not here tonight, so I'm happy to answer any of those questions that you might have as well. We have Mark Jang on the phone. He is a member of Alliance Fear Ventures, who is the developer for this project. And also here tonight, we have Lyndon Brown, who is the architect for the micro hospital. So like Linda mentioned, we are talking about three parcels on the northeast corner of Eagle and Overland. They comprise of about 4.56 acres. And as you got a summary of, Rackham Way currently bisects the site and intersects with Overland Road. And there is that ACHD commuter ride parking lot to the north of the site. So we've taken a decent process to get to where we are tonight. Like Linda mentioned, the parcels were originally annexed and zoned into the city in 2009, where they established that development agreement that our project is now being roped into. In January, we had our pre-op meeting with the city. We had a neighborhood meeting in February, submitted our applications in March, and then that brings us here tonight. City Council Chambers, So the applications we're chatting about tonight are that develop agreement modification, which will modify the existing da to accommodate our proposed site plan and a few of those other provisions we've chatted about. City Council Chambers, A preliminary plot, which will adjust the right of way and parcels for the rack and road realignment as well as a conditional use permit to permit that hospital use in the CG zone. In the future, this project will have to come back for a few more, not to the city, for a few other applications, and those include design review, certificate of zoning compliance, as well as a final plot. And then we'll also have to go through a right-of-way vacation hearing with ACHD, which is its own public hearing process. So here's our conceptual site plan for this project. We have two lots and one common lot. The zoning is CG. The comp plan designates the site as mixed use regional, which calls for a mix of employment, retail, and public uses like a medical facility near major arterial intersections like Eagle and Overland. So Linda covered all of the modifications already. So I won't bore you with that again. But we are in agreement with all of the how that's explained in the staff report. So access to the site is provided mainly through the right in right out access of the realigned intersection of Rackham Way and Overland Road. A few other options to enter the site, especially if you're traveling eastbound on Overland Road. is through this Silverstone Way intersection. U-turns are permitted at this stoplight. And if you don't want to take a U-turn, you can make your way north up Silverstone Way and loop back around down towards Rackham Way. So this is a site plan specific to the microhospital lot, which is just one of the lots in the subdivision. The microhospital will be a one-story building with about 24,000 square feet. It'll include 57 parking stalls and three ADA stalls. It does meet all-dimensional requirements of the CG zone, and it will further be reviewed by DR and CZC reviews. We will have a main customer entrance on the west side of the building and an ambulance entrance on the south side. So a few operational details we'd like to chat through is that this microhospital will include a full emergency department with 10 ER treatment rooms, an imaging department, and eight overnight patient beds. We are anticipating eight to 10 employees per shift and have an average of 20 to 30 anticipated patrons per day. Anticipated ambulance trips for this type of facility are pretty low on the range of four to five arriving to the facility per month and about 12 leaving the facility per month. And the proposed operating hours are 24-7. City Council Chambers, Here is a rendering showing the proposed architecture of the micro hospital is a combination of brick and stone veneer and once again this will further be reviewed in design review for compliance with the city's architectural standards. So we've received agency comments from all the different departments. ACHDs are noted first. Like Linda mentioned, we are required to dedicate 74 feet of right-of-way along Overland Road across our property's frontage. We are required to do the vacation and dedication of that realigned Rackham Way. And we have agreed to provide site distance exhibits for Rackham Way to make sure that the driveway locations were providing are safe just since that road is kind of curvy and through that section. I would also like to point out that Meridian Public Works noted that there's adequate water and sewer services available to service site. We had a chance to read through the staff report, and there's a few things we wanted to address with you all tonight. The first is that issue variance that's noted on the first page of the staff report that hospitals shall have direct access on an arterial. We aren't providing this. Like Linda mentioned, Eagle and Overland are both arterials, but the site technically takes access from Rackham Way, which is a local road. Both in the existing DA and ACHD requirements, direct law access from Overland Road is prohibited. So that is why this project is taking access from Rackham Way instead. The first driveway into the site This one right here is only about 500 feet from overland road so we're very close access wise to an arterial and we believe the consolidated access points are actually safer from a traffic standpoint for patrons to access the micro hospital site. were also a few conditions in the staff report that we wanted to chat through with you all and ultimately get a recommendation from city council regarding the timing of our submittals the first one is that we are conditioned to complete the right-of-way vacation and exchange prior to the submittal of the first final plot We would like to request to move this condition because the next step in our process will be to complete construction documents for the Rackham Way Road, and that will be intimately tied into the final plot. AC hd requires fully approved subdivision roadway documents before we're able to apply for that right away vacation, and so we would like it makes the most design sense to have the city and a ch D review those subdivision and final plot drawings, at the same time. the second condition also in regards to timing is that no building permits shall be issued until final plot has been recorded um we would like to request that this be changed to after the right-of-way vacation is approved but before the final plot has been recorded and this just lets the project come online into the city a little bit faster We have had initial conversations with city staff about the potential of that, and it sounds like it might be feasible, but we would have to get prior approval from city council, which is why we're asking for it now. With that, we'd like to request recommendation of approval for development agreement modification, preliminary plot, and CUP, and I stand for any questions. Thank you.

Madam Chair.

Commissioner Gelsomeno.

A quick question. If city council determines that Rackham Way access doesn't satisfy the UDC and requires a redesign before approval, has your traffic engineer generated emergency response time data for any alternative direct arterial access configuration? I mean, given that ACHD I'm, you know, correct me if I'm wrong, has indicated it wouldn't support a new direct driveway at Eagle and Overland. What alternative configuration actually exists?

I think the way we have, Commissioner, I think the way we have it laid out is pretty much our only option for the realignment of Rackham Way. The intent of the new design is to get that intersection between Rackham Way and Overland as far east and away from the Eagle and Overland intersection as we can. So we haven't gone through many alternatives because I don't think that there are many. Thank you.

Madam Chair. Commissioner Perot.

So can you give us some more understanding of, I'm not familiar with sort of a concierge micro hospital concept. Can you give us some understanding of the ambulatory services and why it would be necessary to have another, you know, available ambulatory service or emergency service, I should say, when you have St. Luke's Meridian so close and And what kind of also didn't go through the exact route that like an ambulance would take, you know, exactly where are they going to go? Are they going to have to go through that additional ride at Silverstone and go around? And I know that's not necessarily a decision for us to make, but I just want to understand, you know, the whole idea of why emergency service is even necessary here.

Yeah. Yep. I can talk through the site circulation a little bit. So I think the first point I'd like to remember is that a very limited amount of ambulances would be entering the site in an emergency situation. I think the biggest route that they would take or most likely route that they would take Yeah, would either be with that U-turn at Silverstone Way or coming up around Silverstone. As far as the hospital operational data, we have Dr. Robert Seeley on the call. I might defer to him for any more microhospital-related operational questions if he's able to join. If not, we can have him call in during the public comment portion.

Mr. Seeley, can you raise your hand, please? Oh, thank you. Hi, if you can state your name and address for the record.

Hi, my name is Robert Seely. I'm an emergency medicine physician and CEO at Post Falls ER and Hospital and my address is 497 South Beck Road in Post Falls, Idaho.

Thank you. Commissioner Perot, can you ask your question again to Mr. Seely?

Yes, absolutely. So I just want to understand, the necessity of having the emergency service? Is that just a requirement due to the type of medical service that you're providing to the community and it's just on a very as needed limited basis? Or is this an active part of sort of your business model and some more understanding of how the traffic concerns could create limitations for you. Obviously, I assume you guys have all talked through all of these possible scenarios, but I just want to understand, you know, why you actually have an emergency service, honestly.

Absolutely. So we've been open in post falls now for two years. And I can tell you from experience that if you talk to anybody that's been to an emergency department recently, The wait times are pretty significant in most cities, and I don't think Meridian or Boise are any different. And probably the best way to describe it would be a surgical, outpatient surgical hospital is not a new concept. A lot of us have used those in the past. This is very similar. This is a hospital that is built on serving emergency medical needs in the community. And it has been very well received by patients. It's an access to care is what it is. And Kelly is absolutely right. Our experience has been over the past two years, we average 11 ambulances per month. And those are for transfers out. Those patients have been stabilized. And so when the ambulances do come through, they're not coming through typically with lights and sirens. It's not disruptive. And our average patient census through the emergency department, we have a 12 bed emergency department and five bed inpatient unit. But our average census is 25 patients per day. And so once again, that is not a heavily trafficked proposal. So did I answer your question? I can't.

Commissioner Perot?

Yes, I believe so. It sounds like this is sort of a private hospital operating sort of business. In other words, you may or may not be open to the public?

No, we are open to the public. And we treat anybody that comes through the doors like any other emergency department would. And we follow the same regulations as any of the other emergency departments in the state.

So it would be feasibly possible that your emergency service would pick up if folks now realize that they have another alternative to St. Luke's up the road?

Yes, that is accurate. I know that for when we started out, we were seeing eight to 10 patients per day. And over the past two years, we've steadily grown to the point where we're seeing, as I said, on average around 25 patients a day now. And so as word gets out and people find out about the service, yes, there is some growth, organic growth, and that is normal.

Okay, thank you.

Madam Chair?

Commissioner Smith?

Yeah, so it seems like one of the things that was mentioned in public comment, and it seems like there's a little bit of a discrepancy, is regarding this Lot 2 kind of retail parcel. So as... I was actually able to find it. It does show in the plans that were provided to staff, I don't think we see drive-through mentioned anywhere. But I was able to track it down. It's on part of the actual geotechnical report. It's mentioned briefly as retail with drive-through. Could you expand? Is that the maybe long-term plan? Was this maybe just an example use provided for... the technical purposes, trying to kind of understand where that discrepancy is coming from.

Yes, Commissioner Smith. The geotechnical reports are provided at the very beginning of the process, so I think that was just a sample use that was provided to them very early on in the process. We have since... This is the most accurate conceptual plan for that lot that we're showing in here. The developer is in talks with a Les Schwab development to go in here. That is very preliminary, nothing official. So as far as... the purview of these applications we just have the conceptual site plans um to show you for now and then like linda mentioned in the future whatever does develop there you guys would have a chance to to look at it again whether it's a cup or ccc all that sort of good stuff thank you all right thank you very much thank you commissioner

I just, I just wanted to make a comment on the conditions that they are proposing. So staff is not in agreement with the removal of condition number two. We need that vacation the right of way to be vacated or exchanged prior to that final plat being submitted. Because we can't approve a final plat with a roadway that has not been vacated. Because then they'll come in and want their building permit. But if the vacation doesn't go through, then we've allowed them to get a building permit to build on something that's not theirs. And ACHD actually required that same thing, that right-of-way be vacated prior to the submittal of their first final plat. So we'd like to keep that condition.

Can you bring that up on her presentation from where you're at?

Yep.

Okay, so what you're saying is that both the city of Meridian and ACHD require the vacation and exchange prior to final plan.

Correct.

All right, Kelly, you'll have to get reconfirmation from ACHD because sounds like she got opposite information.

No, it's in their staff report.

Oh, it's in the staff report. Okay. All right. And then condition three.

They're saying that they will read the letter. Sorry. Um, They want to modify it so once vacation has been approved that they can get a building permit prior to the final plat being recorded. So it is commercial property. One building permit can be allowed, and they can't get occupancy until the plat has been recorded. That is something that is potentially can be done. I know we've had issues before. When we've done that, but it is that is not uncommon. So that is something that we may be able to work with that scan on.

Okay. All right. Thank you. Madam Clerk, do we have anybody signed up to testify?

Thank you, Madam Chair. Robert Seeley did sign up online. We can check. Did you want to check with him to see if he had a separate testimony?

Mr. Seeley, did you have any other comments that you would like to make for public testimony?

No, I do not. Thank you.

All right. Thank you.

Madam Chair, we have Mark Jane. Mark and Chambers. OK. We have Lyndon Brown in chambers signed up. Would you like to speak?

OK. Thank you.

Madam Chair, no one is raising their hand online.

Is there anybody in chambers that would like to speak on this? Please come up. Hello.

Hello, Chair, Lord Chair, Commissioners. My name's Ethan Mansfield, 4409 West Albion Street. I work for Hawkins Companies. You'll hear me in a few minutes, but I just wanted to stand up and talk a little bit about condition number two here. I just completed a right-of-way vacation and exchange, exactly like what's happening here in the city of Boise. And I actually don't know how condition number two will actually be able to be met because of ACHD's process. So what happens is ACHD will, as the applicant said, only even look at your proposal after the city council has approved a final plat. That's not engineering and public works looking at a final plat. That's just city council approving a final plat because only then do you start engineering for the final plat, right? We don't start the construction drawings until after city council's approved it. So this condition number two is actually pretty impossible to meet. And I'm thinking back for my project in the city of Boise, it would have been functionally impossible to have met this process. So I just wanted to share that. Um, and it's not nefarious in any way for, to remove this condition and do it in this order. It's just the way ACHD will expect it. And it's quite, I'm not going to lie. It's quite muddy because city council, you know, city staff may not understand how ACHD processes these things. ACHD certainly doesn't understand how the city processes them. So you get this going on and I've been trying to process a, That i've been in this scenario for about a year now with a CHD in the city of boise and so i'm just hoping that. By waving condition number two removing that we can prevent this applicant for being in the same position, I found myself in so just wanted to provide some clarity.

All right, thank you very much. there by all some chambers that would like to speak. Kelly, do you have any final comments.

Do I need my name again?

No? Perfect.

I just wanted to address really quickly the public testimony that was submitted earlier today. Linda chatted through some of the main bullet points of that, but I don't know if you guys were able to see that in your packet or read through it. Perfect. So number one talks about the determination that a traffic impact study is unnecessary when ACHD submitted their staff report that was on the front page confirmed by them during that process. I think we touched a little bit already about the conceptual use for lot two block two, so I don't think I need to go through that anymore. And then as far as some of the hospital operations being unverified, like Dr. Seeley mentioned, we do have a similar facility in Idaho Falls. And so we could get more substantiated information about those operations prior to city council for them to make a determination.

That's it. Any questions I can answer?

Commissioner Perl. Did he say Post Falls or Idaho Falls? I have Idaho Falls. I could be wrong. Okay. I'm just curious because I know that neither of those cities have as intense of traffic situations as Eagle and the interstate and Eagle and Overland. So I'm wondering if that was taken into account kind of as you're making your determinations.

Commissioner, it was not specifically. I think the determinations would be based on the number of patient beds and that sort of thing at the facility, more so than the traffic in the area.

Sorry, I should clarify. When you're... I wasn't talking about patient treatment or care. I was talking about when you make determinations regarding... your access from Rockham Way, the timing for your ambulances to get into that area. And because it's all interrelated, right? I mean, we're talking about a variety of things, but ultimately when we're making these decisions, we have to take all of that into account. And so I don't know if there were, you know, if there's going to be adjustments to how many patients are being treated, how many, you know, patrons that you have coming in and out. And this is a really critical corner. And that right in right out on Rockham Way could not just be obviously used for your facility, but it's going to be connected to the big broader facility that's in Silverstone. And so there's just a lot of moving pieces that aren't just about your application. And so I'm just I just I'm kind of wanting to still really get a big picture understanding, I guess.

Yes, Commissioner, like you mentioned, I think there are a lot of moving pieces. So we've tried to do our best to marry the requirements and needs of that busy corner with ECHD policies, which we are very largely abiding by the needs of the micro hospital and the needs of the entire area. And we'll continue to work with all of those parties as we move forward as best as we can.

All right, thank you very much.

Thank you.

Oh, wait, what?

Sorry, I guess before we close the public hearing, Madam Chair.

Okay. I'd like to get some more clarity and or alignment around kind of condition two. I saw when we were having public comment, I saw staff maybe discussing something. I'm curious. I want to make sure that we're able to go about this the right way while also allowing the applicant to not be in this kind of catch-22. So could you speak to that a little bit more?

Correct. I heard what Ethan said. But again, as we're reading through ACHD staff report, that was a condition that they did place on the applicant. So if they're telling the applicant that they can't submit a final plat until the vacation has been completed, Um, so I'm not sure city is following suit with ACHD. We are in agreement that they should not submit a final plat until that vacation has been completed.

Okay.

So apparently it is something that they do and it's a requirement that they have and city is in agreement with that requirement.

And Kelly, if that's not your understanding, based on even on Ethan's comments, if you could, I would suggest for this particular application, so we're not holding it up to have some kind of documentation from a CHD when you get to counsel that defines this better, because It's basically two agencies who work independent of each other saying two different things. And so in your best interest to making sure that you're following the process that you want to go through so that you can get your application approved, I would see if ACHD is willing to put anything additionally in writing in time for counsel. Would you be okay with that?

Yeah, I agree. I think that's the route I was going to go anyway.

Okay. We're thinking alike. All right. Thank you very much. Yes. Thank you. May I get a motion to close the public hearing, please?

So moved. Second.

It's been moved and second to close the public hearing for item number 2026-0011, Rackham Micro Hospital. All those in favor, say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed? Motion carries. You know, having opportunities for people to make choices about their health care, I think, in a growing community is essential. And we've had successful healthcare places and we've had unsuccessful. I think I saw in the newspaper today that an urgent care place in downtown Boise is turning into a wing stop because they weren't able to you know, get the patients or the business model that they wanted in the area that they were. So not everything is successful, but understanding that this is so close to a very major hospital, which probably does have long wait times, and actually focusing more on imaging, x-ray, CT scans, MRIs, where if they do need larger care, we have a hospital nearby to take care of them. I think just gives our community more choices. As far as the location is concerned, our EMTs and ambulance service know how to run these roads and move them. I think creating Rackham Way in a way that makes it almost a designated street specifically for almost this hospital by itself. is fine understanding that a CHD does not permit right or any kind of entry right off of overland or Eagle Road. So I'm in favor of this. I think it's probably well thought out and it'll fill that that corner up and gives our community and then my only I wouldn't take away condition number two, but just recommend that the client has better information from a CHD in the city before they go to council.

Chair.

Commissioner Smith.

Yeah, I tend to agree. I think there's, you know, I'm I'm I don't love the access to be candid, but it seems like you know guidance from from staff is that that I think that'll be a conversation at the city council level regarding the waiver. I think, in terms of its location and it's the appropriate land use. I think this is an area that there is a good amount of traffic, obviously, on these arterials. But I think there's also plenty, there's a lot of retail commercial activity surrounding this. I don't think that there's any use that the city would be starving for if this were to go into place. I think this is valuable enough to justify kind of um the change i guess i do have one ask if we could get i just want to make sure if we get the version of the conditions that were in the staff report as well on screen i just also want to make sure that or in the presentation from staff on screen i also just as we're drafting motions um i just would like to make sure that we're not missing anything um but in terms of the actual application itself i agree with you um i think condition two that could be something that i think can be hashed out And if there is a discrepancy, I trust that city council will be able to kind of manage that. But if in a perfect world, maybe there's a misunderstanding and things are easier than they look.

And keep in mind in St Luke's and I'm by no means an expert and I might even get the street wrong in order to get to the emergency room at St Luke's. You have to take you have to go down Louise drive probably what a quarter mile and a couple speed bumps before you even get to the emergency room so it's it's almost kind of the same thing it's not like it's right off at Eagle Road, you have to. go east on Louise Drive to get to the emergency room on the backside of the hospital. So in my view, this is not that much different because matter of fact, Rackham Drive might even be shorter to get to their docking bay for patients. But I've only been to the hospital a few times. I'm clearly not an expert, but if I remember correctly, you have to go down Louise and then take a right into the emergency room.

Madam Chair, really quickly, just to confirm with staff, is this already fully in the staff report, or does any of this need to be a modification? That's all I was trying to, isn't staff report, okay.

Thank you.

Commissioner Delfimino?

Madam Chair, I echo my fellow commissioners' thoughts as well as yours, particularly with Commissioner Smith's observations. I also do have some concerns you know, concerns with the access. I am curious though, and if it's appropriate to ask legal and staff this, if city council determines that, you know, I was looking at condition 14 in particular, if the project doesn't comply with UDC, what legally happens if we approve the CUP tonight? what happens to the CUP if council doesn't find that it satisfies.

Commission. So city council makes the final determination. All you're doing is make a recommendation. So you're not approving the CUP, city council will approve the CUP. You're just making a recommendation tonight. Understood. Thank you.

Commissioner Perot, do you have any other comments?

No, I think my fellow commissioners covered it all. I'm in agreement with all the concerns and statements that have been made. Thank you.

Madam Chair.

Commissioner Smith.

After hearing all, sorry, all staff applicant and public testimony, I move to recommend approval of file number H-2026-0011 as presented in the staff report with a modification to amend condition three to allow for issuance of permits after right-of-way vacation but before recording of final plat. Seconded.

It's been moved and seconded to approve Rackham Microhospital. All those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries. Thank you very much. Yes. We will take a five-minute break, and we will come back at five tilts, and we'll start with Kitty Academy. Thank you. All right, if we can resume the meeting. We're gonna open item number 2026-0030, Kitty Academy of Meridian requests a conditional use permit for a daycare. And we will begin with the staff report.

Thank you, Madam Chair, members of the Commission. The next application before you is a request for a conditional use permit. This site consists of 1.33 acres of land. It's sown CG and is generally located north of West Chittenden Boulevard and west of North Levi Avenue at 6513 North Levi Avenue. A little history on this property. It was annexed in 2019 with the requirement of a development agreement and is included as lot four, block two in Pollard subdivision number one. A modification to the development agreement was approved in July of this year for a new development agreement for lots one through seven, block two, Pollard subdivision number one. The amended development agreement has not yet been signed and recorded. The amended development agreement includes an updated conceptual development plan, which includes a subject property. And that is that plan here on the left. The Comprehensive Plan Future Land Use Map designation for this property is Mixed Use Interchange. A conditional use permit is requested for a daycare center for up to 188 children at one time in an 8,640 square foot building on 1.33 acres of land in the CG zoning district. The proposed use is subject to the specific use standards listed in UDC 11439 daycare facility. The proposed site development plan is consistent with the conceptual development plan recently approved with the Pollard West Development Agreement, as shown, and depicts the proposed building pad, playground area, drive aisles, and parking. Access is provided to this site via drives and access easements recorded with the Pollard Subdivision No. 1 plat from North Levi Avenue through adjacent lots. On-site vehicle parking and turnaround areas are provided to ensure safe discharge and pickup of clients. Based on the square footage of their proposed structure, a minimum of 17 off-street parking spaces are required. A total of 40 spaces are proposed, which exceeds the minimum standard by 23 spaces. The applicant states the proposed parking should be sufficient to serve the approximate 35 staff members on site at one time when the facility is operating at capacity and clients that come and go at different times. A 10-foot wide street buffer along abutting drive aisles and parking lot landscaping is proposed that's required to comply with UDC landscape standards. Detached sidewalks are proposed along the north and east boundaries of the site adjacent to drive aisles for safe pedestrian access and connectivity to and from adjacent neighborhoods. Sidewalks are also proposed around the building and adjacent to the parking area along the front of the building and play area. The proposed days and hours of operation are Monday through Friday from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. There are no residential districts or uses adjoining the site. The outdoor play area is proposed to be fenced with a 6-foot-tall open-vision non-scalable steel fence to secure against exit and entry by small children as required. Building elevations were submitted for the proposed structure as shown. Building materials consist of stucco, wood tone siding, metal flashing, and seam roof with stone veneer accents. The final design of the structure is required to comply with the commercial design standards in the architectural standards manual. Written testimony has been received from Randy Haberfield, Architecture Northwest, the applicant's representative. They are in agreement with the staff report. Staff is recommending approval with the conditions in the staff report. Staff will stand for any questions.

Would the applicant like to come forward? Hi, if you can state your name and address for the record, please.

Madam Chair, my name is Randy Haverfield with Architecture Northwest, 224 16th Avenue South in Nampa.

Thank you.

We have reviewed the comments, worked closely with Sonia and Bill as far as in understanding what the requirements would be, have no issues with the findings of fact. I am here tonight with the owners of the facility, and they can answer any specific questions if you want to ask them. That's Jeremy and Claire Wilson. They currently operate another Kiddie Care Academy in southeast or south portion of Meridian already. that's a very good practice what's unique about this property is there's significant growth happening in that area with new st al's just to the north of this site other commercial uses along highway 2026 and obviously in that area and then along the rim with residential so it's a great addition for that area so i stand here for any questions you might have i think we're good thank you very much Well, thank you have a good evening.

And i'm Clark do we have anybody signed up to testify.

Thank you, Madam chair, I have Claire and Brian Wilson did you want to say anything okay okay.

Anybody else in chambers and there's no one on zoom.

I do have Jeffrey Fletcher and he looks like he's online.

Mr. Fletcher, if you want to testify in this application, if you can state your name and address for the record.

I'm sorry, no testimony from me. Thank you.

Okay. All right. Thank you.

Madam Chair, no one else has signed up.

Randy, did you have any other final comments or are you good? All right. May I get a motion to close the public hearing?

So moved. Second.

It's been moved and second to close the public hearing for Kitty Academy of Meridian. All those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed? Motion carries. We need daycare, especially on the north side. So, you know, it's a big facility. I had my kids back a thousand years ago, went to New Horizons, which is also a larger daycare and was very pleased. And I'm sure your facility will do amazing things with the kids. So lots of new families coming in. And it looks like you got plenty of room to create your dream business right there. So looks good. Any other comments from commissioners?

Madam Chair.

Commissioner Giacomino.

After considering all staff applicant and public testimony, I move to approve file number H2026-0030 as presented in the staff report for the hearing date of August 6, 2026 with the approval with conditions in the staff report.

Second. Second.

It's been moved and seconded to approve Kitty Academy. All those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed? Motion carries. Thanks for being patient. Sorry we couldn't do you first. All right, Ethan, you ready? Okay, item number 2025-007, Syringa Crossing. Requests an annexation, preliminary plant, and conditional use permit for multifamily housing on Meridian Road near Amity. To give you a little history on this, we saw this application on April 2nd, and it was sent to council. There were some changes between a commission and council, and council said, we'd like the commission to hear those changes. So Sonia, we'll start with the staff report.

Thank you, Madam Chair, members of the Commission. As you noted, the applications before you are a request for annexation and zoning, a preliminary plat, and a conditional use permit. The annexation portion of the site consists of approximately 62 acres of land, including right-of-way to the section line of adjacent roadways, currently zoned RUT and LO in Ada County, generally located at the northwest and southwest corners of West Amity Road and South Meridian Road and State Highway 69. A little history on this property. In 2010, the future land use map designation on the northwest corner of the property was changed from medium density residential to mixed use regional at the applicant's request. In 2019, the designation was changed to mixed use community with the city's comprehensive plan update. In 2021, the property owner of Jessica Condominiums on the northwest corner of the development area along South Meridian Road and State Highway 69 entered into a consent to annexation agreement with the city and an agreement for provision of water service outside Meridian City limits, which states the owner consents to annexation when such units are eligible for annexation and execution of such agreement is a condition of city's commitment to provide water service to the property. The property is currently provided with city sewer and water service. At the request of staff, this property is included in the annexation request. And that is this area, if you can see here on the center map where my arrow is, that's that small property right there. The comprehensive plan feature land use map designation, as I noted, is mixed use community. Um, as noted by the chair, uh, this application was previously heard by the commission on April 2nd, when the commission recommended denial to city council based on inadequate integration between residential and non-residential uses. Lack of prioritization of pedestrian mobility within the project and proposed open space failing to adequately serve residential and non-residential users as desired in the comprehensive plan. After the Commission hearing, the applicant submitted a modification to the zoning request and updated development plans to address deficiencies discussed during the Commission hearing that contributed to the Commission's recommendation of denial. City Council felt the Commission should review the changes and provide an updated recommendation. Therefore, the project was remanded back to the Commission for a new hearing. The staff report was updated to include the revised information and plans and removed information that is no longer applicable. The applicant is requesting annexation of 62.43 acres of land with R15 zoning, which is 9.73 acres, R40 zoning, which is 16.58 acres, LO zoning, which is 5.33 acres, CN zoning, which is 2.07 acres, and CC zoning, which is 28.73 acres. A conceptual development plan was submitted with the annexation application that depicts how the site is proposed to develop as shown. On the northwest corner of Amity and South Meridian Road, a multifamily development is proposed consisting of 94 apartment units at a gross density of 9.16 units per acre, 37,000 square feet of office uses, a 63,000 square foot grocery store, and retail shops, restaurants, and a bank totaling 117,600 square feet of commercial space overall. All commercial development is proposed to be a single story in height, while the residential apartment buildings are proposed to be three and four stories in height. The residential apartment buildings are the areas shown in brown here on the northern portion of the property. The brown is the office and the red is the commercial. A mix of at least three different land use types is proposed as desired. The proposed residential density conforms to that desired in the comprehensive plan. Community serving facilities such as hospitals, clinics, churches, schools, civic buildings, or public safety facilities are not provided, which increases service and transportation network impacts. Supportive and proportional outdoor quasi-public spaces and places connected by pathways are proposed. consisting of plazas, outdoor gathering areas, and linear open space areas that exceed the 5% desired in the comprehensive plan. At the southwest corner of the annexation area, 30,000 square feet of commercial space is proposed, which is anticipated to include restaurants, retail shops, a coffee shop, and gas station convenience store, and 7,800 square feet of office uses were added since the last plan you saw. Across the street on the southern portion of the development, a 302-unit multifamily residential development is proposed with a gross density of 18.24 units per acre. Commercial structures are anticipated to be a single story in height. Residential structures are anticipated to be three to four stories in height. The development proposed on the southwest corner is inconsistent with the policies in the comprehensive plan for the following reasons. The residential area is 68% of the site, which is 18% more than the maximum allowed of 50%, and 3.24 units per acre over the maximum density allowed of 15 units per acre. Commissurate levels of employment and other non-residential elements supporting residents and reducing local vehicle trips are not provided due to the excess of residential area and density provided. outdoor quasi public spaces and places such as plazas outdoor gathering areas and linear open space are proposed in the commercial portion of the development, which appear to generally meet the minimum standards. For mixed use areas and the comprehensive plan, however, they are not functionally integrated with the residential development as desired. Community serving facilities such as hospitals, clinics, schools, churches, civic buildings, or public safety facilities are not provided, which increases service and transportation network impacts. The applicant has requested the overall project be considered as one project for consistency with the comprehensive plan rather than two individual projects. The comprehensive plan specifically states contiguous mixed use identified areas that are bisected by an arterial or highway are considered separate and independent areas for use and design integration and will be evaluated independently of each other. Some of the reasons for such includes safety and efficiency of the transportation network, pedestrians and motorists alike. If the project is considered as one the overall residential density for the project is 14.77 units per acre. And the percentage of residential uses is 49%, which is consistent with the related mixed use policies and the comprehensive plan again only if it's considered one project, rather than two as specified in the COMP plan. And overall pedestrian plan was submitted for the annexation areas shown that shows 10 foot wide pedestrian walkways in blue. And five to seven foot wide sidewalks in pink providing connectivity along streets through parking areas quasi public areas commercial and residential areas. conceptual building elevations and perspectives were submitted showing what future commercial retail buildings and Plaza areas will look like. The primary transportation considerations for this development involve the timing and coordination of required offsite improvements, access management along Amity Road and State Highway 69, and completion of internal street and pathway connections needed to support a functional mixed-use neighborhood pattern. The project would add measurable traffic to a network that already experiences operational strain during peak hours, underscoring the need to align development phasing with programmed intersection and signal improvements. Because of its proximity to two major transportation corridors, the design must emphasize efficient site access, safe circulation, and continuous pedestrian and bicycle connections consistent with the city's adopted street and pathway standards. ACHD's recommended conditions and findings addressing intersection mitigation, access spacing and collector completion reflect these shared objectives and are consistent with the Comprehensive Plan and the Unified Development Code standards for coordinated land use and transportation planning. A preliminary plat is proposed to subdivide the southwest corner of the annexation area, but not the northwest corner. The plat consists of 10 building lots, six commercial, two office, and two residential lots on 24.46 acres of land in the proposed R-40, LO, and CC zoning districts. One access drive is proposed via West Amity Road, and one is proposed via South Meridian Road and State Highway 69. A portion of a future collector street hermitite via West amity road is depicted along the southern boundary. Of the side and stubs to the property to the south, the portion that connects to amity road is off site on the adjacent property to the West and it's not proposed to be constructed with this development. However, the applicant has been working with that property owner and I believe has an agreement to construct the road on their property as part of the fire access requirements if this development is approved. A waiver from Council is requested to UDC 11 3H 4B 2A, which prohibits new approaches directly accessing a state highway. ITD has approved the access by Meridian Road, a backage road generally paralleling Amity Road and South Meridian Road and State Highway 69 is proposed for access to the properties fronting those roads in accord with the UDC. Landscape street buffers are required with the subdivision improvements in accord with UDC standards. There is a 40-foot-wide gravity irrigation easement on the southwest corner in the commercial area, as shown, that area in brown. Trees and large shrubs are not allowed in the easement area. The easement is proposed to be landscaped with a dry stream bed, which also serves as a drivable access road with accent boulders and planter beds alongside. A conditional use permit is requested for a multifamily residential development on the southwest corner of the annexation area. Consisting of 302 apartment units on 16 acres of land in the our 40 zoning district at a gross density of 18.24 units per acre three and four story multifamily buildings are proposed with parking on the ground floor of some buildings. The four-story buildings are proposed here on the north end and the southern end has the three-story buildings. Building materials consist of fiber cement siding, variegated board and batten, and variety of colors and styles, stucco and brick. The final design, if approved, is required to comply with the design standards in the architectural standards manual. The collector street access hermit tight is needed for emergency access and should be extended from West amity road to the site prior to issuing so the first certificate of occupancy within the multifamily development if approved. Based on 302 units a minimum of 1.82 acres of outdoor common open space is required, excuse me, I didn't run through these, let me just take a minute to run through the concept elevations for the multifamily buildings. Again, these are the four-story buildings that are proposed on the north end, and then the three-story buildings. Based on the 302 units, a minimum of 1.82 acres of outdoor common open space is required. A total of 4.84 acres is proposed, exceeding the minimum standard. Proposed amenities consist of a clubhouse and dog park from the quality of life category, a community garden and shade structure with seating area from the open space category, and a swimming pool, walking trails, children's play structure, and three sports courts from the recreation category. Additional amenities from the multimodal category are recommended by staff if approved, consisting of a bicycle repair station and charging stations for electric vehicles. The applicant is requesting the following waivers from City Council. The UDC 114327 states common open space areas and multifamily developments shall not be adjacent to collector or arterial street buffers unless separated from the street by a berm or a constructed barrier at least four feet in height with brakes on the berm or barrier to allow for pedestrian access. The applicant requests approval through the conditional use permit for common open space areas in the multifamily development to be located adjacent to a collector street buffer without a berm or barrier separating it from the street. The reason for such is an enhanced interaction is desired between the street and 10 foot wide multi use pathway along the collector street with an hour narrower street section and wider pathway adjacent to common areas. The second waiver from Council is to UDC 11-3H-4B-2A, which prohibits new approaches directly accessing a state highway. Council may consider and approve a modification of the standard upon specific recommendation of the Idaho Transportation Department or if strict adherence is not feasible, as determined by City Council. The applicant is requesting Council approval of the proposed access south of Amity Road. A recommendation has been received from ITD on the access. They will allow a write-in, write-out access. No written testimony has been received on this application. Staff is recommending denial because the proposed conceptual development plan is not consistent with the general mixed use and mixed use community principles in the comprehensive plan for the following reasons. The proposed development is not functionally integrated in design or uses per the design standards in the plan, i.e. the uses function as individual components, not together as desired. The Southwest corner, Development is 72% residential with a gross density of 18.24 units per acre, which is 22% more residential than the maximum allowed of 50%. And 3.24 units per acre over the maximum allowed density of 15 units per acre. Commensurate levels of employment and other non-residential elements supporting residents and reducing local vehicle trips are not provided due to the excess of residential area and density provided. Community-serving facilities such as hospitals, clinics, churches, schools, civic buildings, or public safety facilities are not provided in either development, which increases service and transportation network impacts. And supportive and proportional outdoor public and or quasi-public spaces and places such as parks, plazas, outdoor gathering areas, linear open space, and schools are proposed as desired However, these areas are not located in spaces between residential and non-residential uses to provide integration and transition between uses in either development area as desired in the comp plan. If the commission decides to approve the subject applications, the project should be continued to a later hearing date in order for staff to prepare conditions of approval for the commission's consideration. Staff will stand for any questions.

Chair. Madam Chair. Commissioner Perot.

If we were to consider all of this as one project, would they have to apply for a comp plan amendment of some sort?

Madam Chair, Commissioners, Commissioner Perot, no. A comprehensive plan text amendment would not necessarily be required. It would be the determination of the commission and council.

If they chose a different zoning instead of mixed-use community, has that conversation come up at all as far as whether it was more, I'm just throwing out words here, traditional neighborhood or some other kind of concept planned to be able to meet some of these minimums of residential and commercial together?

Madam Chair, I'm not sure I'm following. Are you asking... if we discussed them doing a different future land use map designation rather than mixed use community, rather than zoning. Is that what you're asking?

Yes.

Yes, we did. We encourage them to do commercial and a higher density residential that would be more consistent with what they're proposing.

Okay. All right. Would the applicant like to come forward?

Madam chair commissioners thanks for hanging around with uh with us this evening um i'm ethan mansfield uh representing hawkins companies 855 west broad street boise idaho 83702 um yeah i'd like to uh i've got a lot to pack in here um i'd first like to say look if the comprehensive plan gets us past the finish line and we can notice as such and keep this plan We're more than willing to do that. That has not really been an option that we've really discussed, or that I recall. So something for your consideration. We do think this fits within the mixed-use community comprehensive plan area, and I'm going to talk about why. You are familiar with the request, so I won't talk about that too much. A little bit of history, we were actually instructed in 2020 to consider this as a single project. And the current comprehensive plan says mixed use projects are to be developed with an overall master or conceptual plan for the larger mixed use area. A development agreement will typically be required for a project with a mixed use future land use designation. So that's kind of what we're expecting, looking for, and hoping for. Once we had our city council hearing, I just kind of want to be clear. So city council generally didn't oppose what we were proposing, but wanted the commission who had some comments about integration, uses, as you remember back in April, they wanted an opportunity for you to weigh in on this new proposal. So after the city council hearing in June, we met with city staff on July 1st, and we specifically asked, give us some specific things we can latch onto to gain staff support. Because functional integration is... a little bit soft, a little bit subjective. And we wanted to understand, what can we do with this plan that provides that? And so we hammered out the list of conditions that you see in front of you. No back out parking on main access drives through the sites from adjacent public streets. Providing bulb outs for parallel parking as a means of traffic calming in some in front of the drive aisles, pads A through D. We're going to bring that four-story building on the north side down to three. These two are very important. An executed STARS agreement is required prior to any development of the site. We're going to talk about the STARS agreement momentarily, but I will say the STARS agreement requires both corners to come in together because the STARS agreement is conditional upon having valuable sales tax generating commercial uses. And those uses have to be configured in a certain way that they'll actually generate the sales tax that are anticipated. And otherwise, we have to have a successful commercial development for stars to work. We'll talk about that in a second. The other thing that we are agreeable to is that we will construct hermitite on the south side of Amity with the first phase of development. If you go back and watch the city council hearing, the mayor had a fantastic idea to kind of allow both the northwest and southwest corners to kind of be considered as one cohesive development, which was what was envisioned in 2020. He said, well, if you have a collector roadway, especially one as we're proposing with 10-foot pedestrian pathways on either side, that might allow that development to be more cohesively tied together than totally separate developments. And so we completely agree. And so that's why we're willing to construct that hermitite and bring that roadway to Amity right off the rip with this first phase of development. we thought we'd gotten pretty close with staff and we apparently are still missing the mark um a little bit i'm not sure how and that's why i'm here before you saying that i think we've kind of nailed it um these are staff concerns I'm going to go through and talk about why I think we've actually addressed these pretty thoroughly. So, you know, what we've done is we've reduced – I'm just going to go through these changes here really quickly. We have 33 fewer residential units than we had in last plan. We added 24,000 square feet of office space. So we added like a hundred percent more office. Um, so that's 45,000 square feet total, basically doubling our office size more than doubling. Um, we added 10,000 square feet of retail. That's a shops building, not additional drive-thrus or car washes or anything like that. So we've got almost 150,000 square feet of food, retail, personal services, other commercial services. Um, finally. we have 10 acres of quasi public open space. That's 18%. That's three and a half times the amount required by the comprehensive plan. So when we talk about the amount of open space required to support the development, we have three and a half times what city feels is appropriate to support a mixed use development. and we'll talk about that more later too. We also have 4.8 acres of multifamily CUP open space. And again, we're willing to dedicate this to the public, um, other than the clubhouse, obviously that remains private. Um, but we're, we're looking at that, that park, it's a quasi public park, right? It's an eight, it's over an acre of park. It's, you know, I looked at the, subdivision to the north, their central gathering place is 0.6 acres. Another subdivision has a 0.5 acre, which is more than twice that size. We have 166 acres more than required of CUP open space. And I'll talk about that a little bit more too. Well, here we are. So this is where I get a little bit confused by staff's statement here, specifically on the southwest corner. These places do not comprise a minimum of 5% of the development area in the Southwest corner. Well, even if you look at just the commercial stuff, the stuff in the commercial area, right? We have 2.8 acres, which is 128% more than what is required by the comprehensive plan on the Southwest corner. In addition to that, we've got 166% more than what's required in our multifamily area alone. in total on the southwest corner one in three square feet of the total land area is open space and that's open space per the udo and comprehensive plan definitions of open space we're not making up our own definition of open space here to fit that that's one in three therefore and the comprehensive plan states high intensity residential requires commensurate levels of non-residential elements supporting residents and reducing local vehicle trips We're asking for, even if you took the southwest corner alone, we're asking for three acres, or three units per acre more in density, but we have 166% more open space than what the UDO requires. And if the UDO is the right standard, and that's adequate amount of open space, we're blowing that out of the water. So this development will not fail. dense, packed, overcrowded, anything like that. I just want to make that really, really clear. As you note on the plan, if you look here in the southwest corner, these areas, the staff report says these areas are not located in spaces between residential and non-residential uses. You know, if you look at the actual plan, that's exactly where these open spaces are located. You can see where the commercial is here wrapping the corner. And you can see where the residential is interior to the site. We have a private roadway, which provides a buffer. And we also have this connected area of connected plazas that basically take pedestrians from one use to the other. It's literally immediately between the commercial and the residential. I don't know how we could get more between. I'm just looking at the plan and thinking about it out loud. And if we can't get more between, I would love to hear your suggestions on how to get more in between and provide a better transition. So here's what these spaces actually look like. We've got kind of little, I mean, we've got little areas for rest and it's comfortable pedestrian experience moving from one place to the other across the development. You know, these show kind of connected themes from the area immediately adjacent, you know, kind of integrated into the multifamily. You cross on a 10-foot pathway kind of crossing across the main drive aisle. Another kind of pedestrian plaza area. crossing the drive aisle to the main commercial, central commercial hub, all the shops. Extremely convenient, comfortable pedestrian experience here. Furthermore, here's just some views of what the park is anticipated to look like, Dog Park, Pickleball. We've got open space, like I said, about an acre. And then here, you know, we didn't talk as much about the north side. That wasn't really a concern of staff's. But, you know, it's a linear open space, basically runs from north of Lyra Street all the way down to the southern corner on Amity and Meridian. We actually had, I think I told everybody this, we had a couple at the neighborhood meeting, one of our earlier neighborhood meetings, actually get really excited about the prospect of having a walking path from where they live up in Stapleton to our development. This provides it. Here's a small office plaza. You know, again, we have these kind of small open spaces some are small some are much larger kind of tucked in throughout the development to create comfortable pedestrian experiences while still meeting parking requirements meeting tenant requirements right we have to do both of those things here's our connectivity exhibit um 10 foot sidewalks throughout the site um commissioner smith last time asked a great question about how the heck does someone get from the southern end of the development To the northern end or across the street on a 10 foot pathway without crossing through a bunch of parking lots we've removed parking spaces. Around these pedestrian pathways to allow for trees. allow for more comfortable spaces for pedestrians to kind of move through the site again we have parking requirements the city of meridian requires north of two parking spaces per unit so we've got to provide that and we want to provide that but we also intentionally are creating space for comfortable movement through the site Finally here's just a kind of a B of the old and the new areas we kind of went through exactly how those work, I can go back to them or dwell on them in the time after I present here. Importantly let's talk about stars. STARS will provide the transportation improvements that are not only required by this development, but that are going far above and beyond. That includes the full build-out of State Highway 69 from south of the development's southern boundary to north of the development's northern boundary. It constructs all of hermitite package. on the north and south sides, builds out all of the legs of each of the intersections of State Highway 69 and Amity. This is only feasible because we have a commercial shopping center on the northwest corner. It's anchored. It's a grocery anchored shopping center. Grocery anchors take up space. You can't just put a grocery store out there and have all of the out pads on the southern side of the arterial. It doesn't work like that. That doesn't generate enough pad interest. The grocer who is an anchor, that's what draws people in. You won't get the trip capture you want either if you do that because people are going to get in their car and drive across the area. It's like if you want people to be captured in this area, they're going to go shop at the grocery store. They're going to go out to eat on that corner. They're going to do all this stuff on the corner. We can't separate the commercial uses to the extent that would allow each development to be split 50-50. I hope that makes sense. I really hope it does because it is an economic reality that we face. So, you know, some of the staff recommendations that are in this report simply just don't work with the SARS agreement. We can't remove the northwest corner from the annexation area. I don't know that that's I think that may have been a vestige of a previous staff report. It was in the most current, but it may be left over from another time. And again, we can't. We can't pull half the commercial from the north to the south side just so we can get 50-50 on each side or 60-40 commercial residential because that's just not how grocery-anchored shopping centers function. It's not how they work. We think this still provides an absolutely fantastic place to live, work, and play. We have elements for each thing. We added office so that they can achieve that. Speaking of community serving facilities, we are providing an acre plus park that we are willing to dedicate to the public. We are absolutely happy to provide daycares, churches, schools, medical offices, clinics. Anything that wants to be here can be here with the mix of zoning that we provide. We're happy to consider civic uses, institutional uses, These agencies all get transmitted. We have not heard any interest. Each of these groups has professional facility citing people that typically are like, hey, we have a master plan that shows us wanting to expand in this area. We want to go here. We haven't heard from anybody. I asked the school district many years ago when this process started if they'd be interested. There's no interest in the school here. I think they have their citing years, years, years in advance. And so you know we don't have those we were happy to consider them if you guys have ideas. So in some we think we comply we'd love for you to consider the development as a whole that's, the only way we get all those transportation improvements with the stars agreement, which is a condition of the approval should you choose to recommend approval. And this just indicates how we comply with the comprehensive plan and additional detail. I'm happy to leave it on that slide so you can read it. Thank you very much for your time. Happy to answer any questions.

Madam Chair?

Commissioner Giacomino.

Staff, quick question. Could you kindly remind me, because it's been a while, who owns the other portion to the west of Hermitite, the property?

Commissioners, that's part of the Story Rock development that was recently approved by City Council.

Perfect. Thank you. Now, quick question, Ethan. So the Fire Department has conditioned multifamily occupancy on prior completion of South Hermetite Avenue. Hermetite, of course, like we just confirmed, crosses property to the west that the client doesn't own. What legal instrument exists today to guarantee right-of-way dedication from that property? Is there a signed option agreement, a recorded easement, or any executed instrument between your client and the adjacent property owner to the west?

Madam Chair, Commissioner Gelsomino, there is a E-mail con basically we've been in communication deep communication with the developer of that property corey Barton and trilogy development. We typically don't execute easement agreements prior to approval from governing bodies, it would just be a kind of a silly thing to do, because we don't have permission to build anything there, so we wouldn't execute an easement to build anything there. So if. the plat for Storyrock, that particular phase is not recorded prior to when we are ready to start construction, we would we would record an easement, an access and utility easement over that. That would then be replaced very quickly with Story Rock's primary entrance road, because they're in the same place. They're the same road. So we've coordinated extensively with Trilogy to assure that whoever goes first builds the road, constructs the road. And if we're building the road, I'm sure Well, I know that trilogy would absolutely give us permission, because we're building them a free entrance road so everyone wins. And story rock has been approved, so you know that if they want to proceed with their development that road goes in.

And chair.

Smith.

Yeah, thanks. Question to the applicant. Can we go to slide 17? I guess it's a couple comments followed by a question. I think from my perspective, I can't speak for staff, but I want to communicate some of the problems that I still have. I'm glad you mentioned kind of our discussion last time around pedestrian connectivity. i'm not going to put you through the same rigmarole as last time but i still see again i i like the pathways i like the like everything here but if i'm in kind of one of these corners you know one of these residential corners either on the northwest or southwest sides i still have to go through four, maybe six conflict points to get to the nearest commercial, right? And I know there are economic realities at play, and you can't have everything fully integrated, but, you know, and if you go to slides 15 and 16, I think some of these functional integration kind of call-outs i don't i don't really look i'm not i can't speak for every consumer i don't see a spot between two offices as functional integration i don't know that i see a fenced in pool or dog park as really functional integration and again i know that there are amenities and certain requirements and you're trying to balance all these so i understand it but when i looked at this last time I think my perspective was that there are a lot of smaller issues that pile up here and not that you can resolve it through a bunch of small tweaks, but there are so many small issues that there might be a larger problem with the overall design. Even if you were to consider this as one project, it still feels very residential, commercial, residential. I know some of that's the fact of the hard corners, et cetera. But I wanted, you know, monologue over, is the client, are they just dead set on this site plan? I mean, what is the... you know, given the feedback from, from planning and zoning, or was this kind of prep for city council, hoping that city council disagreed, which no offense, if that's the plan, that's fine. Um, I guess kind of walk me through some of the decision-making of why we're kind of tinkering with something that from my perspective, planning and zoning last time said, this is kind of maybe a little too fatally flawed to work.

Madam chair, commissioner Smith. I really appreciate the comments. Um, Appreciate the directness. I will say that Hawkins has been doing retail developments since the mid 1970s. We have a pretty good idea about what makes a successful retail space and what makes a retail space that turns over frequently. Retail spaces that turn over frequently typically don't have, and I'm not saying I'm going to just preface this by saying I live a few miles from downtown Boise. I love downtown Boise. I love Hyde Park. That's why I live close to downtown Boise, right? Like, I love having to park two blocks away and walk to Hyde Park to eat and then walk back to my car. However, that said, I was just speaking with our leasing guy yesterday, and he goes, you are an absolute anomaly based on how people spend their money and how people actually use spaces. And I'm like, yeah, I guess I am. That's kind of a bummer, but that is the reality of the situation, right? Is like what drives successful retail is convenient places to park, easy visibility from adjacent roadways, easy access into centers and out of centers. That's what drives retail success. And so as such, And I guess I should, as such, this is why we've designed this the way we have. In addition to that, retail success is really critical here because we have this STARS agreement condition that we've agreed to and we want to participate in that demands sales tax revenue to help pay for transportation improvements. So it drives a public good. So we need that retail to be successful. So we won't be able to lease and we'll accept much, much, much lower rents for buildings that are tucked inside, let's say, between building one and building D1 on the south side, for example. That's just an economic reality that we face. And Again, I'm the first person – I'm like exhibit A on like why I don't – why I hate that reality because I walk around downtown. I love living downtown. But that is an economic reality that we face, and we cannot do what we need to do with – accepting lower rents the community doesn't get what the community needs with lower rents lower rents means lower tenant like lower means lower value lower value basically means like look a tenant is not succeeding it's a bad thing like tenants don't succeed right and they they they circle out and they they don't renew because they're struggling to make ends meet right like successful tenants Community spaces is what we're after here. And so what I'm experiencing and have experienced in the past several years working in Meridian is that there's this fundamental disconnect between what we want to envision our community as an economic reality. And it bites that those are different. And what this attempts to do is merge those together to create comfortable spaces within the context of of making a successful shopping center. And I that's as, that's as good as I can get. I mean, that's really as good as I can give you. Like, I, I will say one more thing about multifamily parking ratios. We're way over what we would like to be as a, as a multifamily developer. If I could remove another 20 parking spaces from this, I probably would, but I can't because of the code, right? We, we like to park 1.7, 1.8, you know, we have to park at 2.1, 2.2 and Meridian. So I'm sure.

Mr. Smith?

I guess a follow-up to that, and I appreciate the economic reality, especially around the retail. I guess part of it, and I should have communicated this clearer, is also the, there's, correct me if I'm wrong, maybe I'm just flat out wrong, But I also think there's nothing prohibitive about pulling some of that residential closer to the retail. I mean, you see even, and I know, again, it's a different location, different rules apply, but just outside these doors, there's residential over retail. Again, different product. Is that just, again, is that just it yields a lower rent product overall? I guess I'm trying to understand. I see plenty of places. I grew up in Southern California, downtown Fullerton, Birch Street and Brea, these places. And they're similar to things that I've seen from Hawkins. So I'm just trying to kind of square that circle of, and Hawkins is capable. I know vehicle-friendly mixed use that still respects pedestrians is doable. Why is it not doable here?

Great question, Commissioner Smith, Madam Chair, Commissioner Smith. This is a fantastic question. We should seriously get a beer sometime and talk about this because I would love to just beat this up. Yeah, I mean, the answer to that question is kind of twofold. The main piece of that is the rents that this area is experiencing, the market rate rental product that we're experiencing, the market rates, market rents, are not high enough to support the construction of something like a 4-over-2 property. We can't go any more than 4 over 2. That might actually exceed the height of the R40, I can't recall. 4 over 1. It simply doesn't work. And it doesn't just work because we might make less money. It's much more complicated than that. It doesn't work because when you don't have returns that hit a certain target, when construction costs are so high that your returns, because of market rents, don't don't generate high enough internal rate of return you can't find people to to invest in your product it's like asking someone hey would you rather spend would you rather put one dollar in and get five dollars out or one dollar in and get two dollars out everyone knows which one they would choose they'd rather put one dollar in and get five bucks out building something like a four over two in this location would be like, Hey, why don't you put $1 in and get $2 out instead of getting $1 and getting put in $1 and get $5 out. That's like, you know, every dude. lady on the street is like making those decisions every day they're just economic actors right they're like what would i rather do how where would i spend my money and that's what we experience when we try to build podium product and especially put things like retail in the bottom of the podium product when market rents aren't there and you know that's the best economic explanation i can provide I'm just trying to be honest with you guys. We just wouldn't be able to build it. I appreciate it. Thank you.

Commissioner Perot.

This is so tough. We always want to redesign projects. I know. For applicants. It's just... But not because we don't think you guys do a good job. It's just, you know, we are seeing the bigger picture of our city as a whole and what we would just think would be so beneficial here. But I have a couple, maybe... City Council Chambers, Smaller questions. City Council Chambers, First, on the the first waiver that's being requested regarding the common open space areas and. I'm curious if you have like a visual of what it is that you're trying to help us understand regarding the. The reasoning for it says in our in the staff comments that says the reason for such. For such as an enhanced interaction is desired between the street and the 10 foot multi use pathway along the collector street with a narrower street section and wider pathway adjacent to common areas so that's in the southwest. southeast corner of the Southwest project, right?

Southwest corner of the Southwest project.

Is that where, so we're looking at UDC 114327 C.8. So this is your first waiver request from council?

Madam Chair, Commissioner Perot, that would actually be a long, hermit-type roadway. Okay. That's not something that we actually need – you know, we're happy to not have that waiver. The reason we requested it is truly because the objective – One of the elements of our functional integration is we want this community to not be fenced off like a little fenced off enclave. We want this community to be part of the neighborhood. We're not adding like, we're not adding a big fence there with little tiny gaps in it. We're generally trying to keep that open and accessible from our 10 foot pathway that runs along hermit type. so that people walking along that don't feel like there's like this closed off development on one side of them. That's like, in my mind, a big element of functional integration, right, is integrating with not only the surrounding uses within the development, but also the surrounding neighborhood fabric. So because of that, that's why we're asking for that waiver. We could install stuff there to make it feel more walled off, but that's simply the only reason we are. So I'm happy to go either way on that. We could figure it out either way. That's not even a cost. I mean, it's not even a cost thing for us. Okay.

Thank you. And then just one more. I think I mentioned this in the last hearing, but the plaza that's there in the southeast corner of the northwest, section i don't understand it if it's me i am not sitting anywhere that has two that has a state highway and a collector road that the noise itself is deafening so why would i sit there and have a coffee or sit with my friend in the plaza or even want to spend any time there and i certainly wouldn't want to take my children there so i want to understand that because we are getting down into the minutiae of well i shouldn't say minutiae that's not that's a bad word but we're getting down into the specifics of these open spaces being so critical. That is one that your, you know, development's kind of trying to showcase. I want to understand the location of that and why that seems to be such an asset for you guys.

Yeah. Madam chair, commissioner Perot, you know, That's a great point. That spot is likely not going to be a focal point of large community gatherings or anything like that. That piece right there is just one of many open space areas, especially on the northwest corner, as you were talking about specifically the northwest corner, where you know, we provide so many kind of other plaza spaces. That's kind of just kind of a continuation of kind of the theme of like, this is a plaza, this is a plaza, this is a plaza. Here is the termination of, or kind of the end of this longer piece of like plaza network, pathway plaza network. It's better to have that kind of, it's, It's almost more of like a visually appealing thing and kind of a design aesthetic to like notate that like here is your stretch of pathway, plaza, and open space areas. Here is the connection between one corner of Amity and Meridian, the other corner of Amity and Meridian. And it's kind of a placemaking kind of like anchoring thing rather than like, I want to spend time with my kids in this particular plaza. Does that make sense? And it is on a busy street. So I understand that.

Um, it does that the, the rendering didn't give that in my opinion. So that's where I was trying to understand that if I can make a recommendation, um, maybe do some really nice artwork. There's such a huge amount of, um, traffic that goes through there. I think if you want to really do some placemaking, you know, do a dedication of some kind or some artwork there. That's not a major issue, but just a recommendation. I see the big picture of what's going on and your desire to have all of this considered as one project. And I understand the concerns as far as the stars go, the STARS program goes. And we had the same conversation with Costco on Chinden about, you know, should the transportation benefit of the STARS program be the driver for the approval of this project? Or is the project, is that just a you know, a benefit that's received because we have this project that our community really wants. And that's the same, you know, decision that we have to make here. And there was a lot of criticism given to the city over, you guys, you know, the city just agreed to Costco because, you know, Chinden Road got widened and this was a benefit to the city of Meridian, right? And so I just want to make sure that we're not doing that. And the stars is the stars is significant. It's huge. It's, it's really an amazing program. Right. But, um, I just, I want you to understand as an applicant that that is a motivator for us, but that is not the motivator for us. And so, um, I don't know if my fellow commissioners feel the same way, but I think that's something that when you're presenting before council, just kind of keep that in mind that that's, You know, it's a plus, it's a benefit, but we've been, we've had these same conversations before and we have to be really careful with that one. And I get how that's a massive thing for you all because of the cost of developing that hermitite and all of that. It's a big deal. But for me, it's not enough of a motivation to say, okay, we're okay with just having this exist the way it is with all the ratios and completely... um, discounting what it is that we have in our comp plan and our code. Um, that being said, um, I, I know you all have probably gone through, you know, who knows how many different versions of this and designs and whatnot of this and, um, I agree with Commissioner Smith that if there's any sense of getting just a little bit more creativity with it, that that would be a benefit. So I just wanted to make those comments to you before we close the public hearing in case there's any questions that you have.

We haven't taken public testimony yet, so thank you. And then we'll open it to public testimony, and if we have any more questions, we'll go from there, okay? Thanks. Madam Clerk, do we have anybody signed up to testify?

Thank you, Madam Chair. We have Pauline Skaggs.

Hi. If you can state your address for the record, that would be great.

My name's Pauline Skaggs. I live at 259 West Norwich. I live in the Stapleton subdivision. OK. OK. And I just had a couple of concerns, one with the noise and one with the traffic. I understand that the two and three story buildings will be, when you walk, fourth state, they just did fourth, on our subdivision, it's fourth stage. Okay, they're all patio homes. They're all senior citizens. we look at our backyard, that's the empty lot. So if they build those apartments right up on us, two- and three-story, that's going to be an issue for us. You know, we're concerned with the noise. I don't know if somebody did a study on, you know, a noise study on the impact of humans, more specifically senior citizens. And also, if they're going to put a barrier that's going to protect our subdivision, from their buildings and what they're gonna build over in that lot. Because a lot of the seniors have problems with sleep right now, and if it's really noisy, it's gonna make it worse. They didn't tell me that when I bought my house a couple months ago. They just told me that it would probably be a grocery store that's gonna be built, they're commercial. And I'm like, okay. But that's why when I first saw the sign, I'm like, I better go see what they're going to do because they told me a grocery store. And now it's more than that. The second thing is the traffic situation. It is really bad. It is not only peaks times, morning and evenings. Meridian Road is constantly full. It reminds me, I moved here in 95. It reminds me how Eagle Road is now. Okay, they're building a Costco on Lake Hazel and Meridian Road. Okay, it's almost done. That's gonna cause traffic. to be even more than it is now. So I don't know if they did a traffic study on the impact. Now, if they build these 302 units and all these commercials and grocery stores and everything, it's difficult to get out of our subdivision right now. That's going to impact us again. The other side of Stapleton is where the young families live, which is fine. They're probably fine with it. But unfortunately, where they build the fourth stage is all senior citizens. Those are our houses right across that line. And that's when I said, wait a minute, I've got to go listen to what they're going to say because I was under the impression it was just going to be like a commercial grocery store. And I saw your little sign and said, better go check it out. So that's basically the noise and the traffic.

Okay, thank you very much.

Chair, you have a question. Oh, Pauline.

Did you get invitations to this neighborhood meetings?

No, I didn't. But one of the residents across the street, my neighbor did the last meeting. Because we kind of citizens, ladies that are widows, we kind of meet monthly. And she said she had a little postcard. And she said, oh, they had a meeting. I didn't go. And I'm like... i didn't get anything i didn't get anything this time as well i just saw your big sign when you leave our subdivision there's a big sign saying that there's going to be a meeting on on tonight at 6 p.m at city hall and how long have you lived in your house i've lived there six months six months so it may have been before you moved in yeah okay okay was the neighborhood meeting in february

Yeah.

And most of the city, it was, like I said, the fourth phase is all senior citizens. It's patio homes. And I've lived there six months, and the majority of the people have moved in in that section after me. Right.

Okay. Thank you.

Madam Chair, we have Sandy Griffith.

I'm Sandy Griffith, and I live at 223 and 32 houses down from Pauline. In the backyards, my backyard faces that whole field. And we have half fences in the back. On the sides, we have a full fence. So my safety level is going to go way down when people are out there and people are looking in my house. And the noise level, like she said, we're divorcees, widows. all retired people and the noise level will be in the traffic. And to go out of our division there on Stapleton, you can't go right. You can't go left. You have to go right. I have to go up to that light and make a U-turn to go into town or go all the way through the division and go clear out to Victory to go out at a light. So traffic and every ambulance that comes from CUNA comes down there. And the big traffic jams at that light when the school bus was wrecked is right there in that intersection. Yeah. OK. It'll be a hardship. All right. Thank you very much. Thank you.

Madam Chair, we have Monty Palmer.

Hi, if you can state your name and address for the record, please.

Hello. Monty Palmer, 3800 South Meridian.

Thank you.

So I've just been observing that development for a long time, even back in 19. I know the plan for it. I think the widening of the road there to have access on Meridian and Amity is huge for that area because if you try to pull into the Victory Greens right now, there's a right in right out where that old barn, where the building is and the business is, which is just crazy to try to turn out of there. It's okay turning in, but to try to turn out, it's ridiculous. Um, I don't, is it crazy to think that, that Hawkins companies is trying to encourage people to like walk and scroll to go to the, you know, to move within the development because it's, um, like the gentleman was saying that the lack of activity, outdoor activity, um, is, I don't think it's unreasonable to walk and scroll and maybe find your way through, you know, take a Like I said, it's just the POSCO obviously knows that there's a huge growth that's going out there. Everything's moving that way. So to accommodate the widening of Meridian and Amity and to even be you know a forerunner in that is is i think very important to the community i think um like the the women were saying with their houses backing up to the you know the multi-family that's um i'm not i'm not sure exactly the buffer zone or how much space is between there or you know what that needs to happen but um I just don't think it's unreasonable to see a development that that spans amity road that is able to. Like said accommodate foot traffic and encourage activity outside of motorized vehicles but. yeah it's. it's definitely needed something's definitely needed for their yeah.

All right, thank you very much.

There's a gentleman raising his hand. Go ahead.

Good evening. If you can state your name and address for the record.

My name is Jim Percy. I own the land that lays to the south of the southwest corner of this project. I've been farming it for over 45 years. If we can pull up, I believe it's 19. The current situation where you see the before We have a lot of green areas and on my farm lays to that southwest corner to the south of that that is under a preliminary plat for a lower subdivision. We have single family homes that border that. There's 13 homes who will be against that right back to back. When you see the new project, there seems to be a lot less green area, and the apartments are longer. They got more space. This is the third plan we've seen on this project, and the first one we downsize it to what you see the old. We was able to agree with that simply because of the common green area that's in there. It's about as good as we can hope for for their project, and it worked for us. I would like to see that remain the old project rather than new project, simply because it's The three-story, just like we've seen right here, the other testimonies, three stories versus single-family homes. And not only the stories, the elevation of the ground is higher than what my farm is. So there's going to be an additional elevation. And I'm not sure just how the final grade will all work out, but that is my concern on that.

Do you know if the houses that are being built along the edge of this, are they single-story or double or two-story homes or a mixture of both?

That's going to be up to the developer. Developer, okay. Yes.

Okay. All right. Thank you for your comments. I appreciate it.

Thank you.

Madam Chair, we have D.C. Brooks, but I don't see anybody else in chambers. I'm not sure who that is.

Okay. And there's nobody online, so.

Correct. No one else has signed up and no one else is online.

All right. Ethan, do you want to come back and address some of the comments, please?

Madam Chair, I would love to. Thanks for having me. Just a quick note on... the north side here adjacent to Stapleton. We actually spent a lot of time ensuring that the multifamily buildings were positioned in such a way that would only, would vary as minimally as possible, influence anyone in the stapleton subdivision you can see that it's kind of oriented at an angle so you don't really even have the windows on the end of the building or the windows on the side of the building really looking directly down on those yards um you know lyra street's going to be um you know like a i think it's a 50 what is like 60 foot wide collector strip is um like that's the right-of-way dedication for the collector it's only that narrow in one spot and other than that you have large amounts of green space um in addition to lyra street right-of-way buffering we also put our clubhouse over there single-story building um finally um you know if you actually look at traffic generation of commercial developments relative to multi-family commercial drives a lot more traffic so we can expect on lyra street for only minimal commercial traffic to be going through there. You know, you have to drive down Solaris Avenue just to get into the commercial development. So we think that most of the commercial traffic is going to concentrate on Amity and Meridian. Finally, you know, the whole intent of... this mixed-use area is to reduce trips by creating trip capture. This happens, whether people like to admit it or not, I'm not going to go from building B1, I'm not going to drive my vehicle on any public roads to get to any of these pads on the southern end here. It would take me longer to get out of my parking space, get onto a public road, drive down the public road, turn into the parking lot, and park in the commercial parking lot than it would be for me to walk. Similarly, we can make the same case for this. We're not going to get on Meridian Road. We're not going to get on Amity Road because you'd have to drive around a mile block. That would just be silly. Instead, I'm going to take my Lime scooter. I'm going to walk or jump on my bike, and I'm going to cruise up. Even if I'm going to the stuff on the north side from the far south, I might jump in my car, but that car will not enter an arterial road. It'll cross one maybe on Amity. But, you know, we're not generating arterial road trips. Like it's in literally anyone who's walking from or traveling from any residential area in this development to any commercial area in this development will not be traveling on an arterial road or state highway. It would just be minutes of delay. an hour of delay and sometimes a day to to get through so you know that that's not an option i mean that doesn't it will not occur so because of that if you think about minimizing trips increasing trips capture minimizing trips on arterial the correct move here from a policy perspective is to max out the density as many people as will fit comfortably here will reduce the amount of trips on the arterial roadway The demand for housing in Meridian won't change based on the number of units we put on this development. What will change is the number of people who live within this development who can access services by walking, biking, scooting. I love line scooters, by the way, by scooting. or even traveling by vehicle on a collector road. So just something to bear in mind as we're thinking about residential densities, as we're thinking about what's appropriate here as far as how much density, right? 18 units an acre is low by multifamily standards. Most of Hawkins residential developments, garden style residential developments are between 20 and 27 units per acre. just for context. And that's because we've added so much additional green space, open space to this plan. And that's what we want because we want it to be livable. But we can't, I'll say it right now, we've spent $1.3 million on site plans and traffic studies on the site. We are getting a little bit of deal fatigue on this. We've tried to really coordinate with staff and We've, we've gotten here. So just want to give you guys some context there. I think, you know, separate from the importance of stars. it's still important for this community to have a successful commercial development. If you put another layer of commercial buildings buried deep in this multifamily on the southwest corner, you're just going to have vacant commercial space or vacant office space. And that's not good for us. It's not good for the community because it doesn't generate tax revenue. It's not a valuable thing. So value is good for everybody. It's not just good for the developer. It's good for the community. And then finally, just one more thing about ground floor commercial spaces, again, goes back to population density. If you think about the success of ground floor commercial spaces in downtown Boise, for example, it's important to remember that there are, at last time I checked, there were 50,000 jobs, 55,000 jobs in downtown Boise. And so that's why there's ground floor retail, 55,000 daytime. And then you add all the people who live down there, which is I think probably eight to 10,000, right? So you got 60,000 people milling around down there, moseying around. Population density is critical to creating conditions for ground floor retail to be successful. And historically in post zoning America, we don't see that level of population density because communities don't, support that level of density and so when you think about buildings in pre-zoning america not sorry again we got to get a beer and talk about this uh commissioner smith but i think about this all the time we when you were allowed to build big tall buildings that's when you get the ground floor rito when there's 50 000 jobs surrounding your community but that's the only time it works that's the only way it works you know here in meridian it's starting to work a little bit like voodoo is awesome but it can't support a whole you know city of that so you know As a very passionate city builder myself, I think about this stuff daily. And as a former planner, I've seen the planning side. As working for a development company, I'm seeing the development side. And I guess I can just say I'd love to walk you guys through this development when it gets built and show you around. I'm excited for it. I want it to happen. So with that, I'll stand for any questions. Thanks.

For the development to the south where the buildings have changed shape and having more exposure to the single-family homes that are going to be on the other side, have you and your team discussed that at all based on your new presentation?

Madam Chair, we learned of that earlier this week. just as a note, these are both three story buildings. So the buildings are slightly longer. We don't, you know, this isn't really to scale. This is for like illustrative purposes only. So, you know, we could look at how long the buildings are. I mean, we, again, we don't know. I mean, we'd have to go back and look if we'd see if we can absorb additional decreases in density. I don't know if that's You know, I mean, we can look at it, but there's absolutely no guarantees that losing density would absolutely only make the project harder to accomplish.

Right. And it looks like you might have some topography issues. He said his property is lower elevation than yours is going to be higher. So a three-story would be even higher than the other. But something to take into consideration for the south neighbors. So any other questions or comments for Ethan?

Madam Chair.

Commissioner Perreault?

So the commercial that's on the south side is there not or has there not been another I don't want to say anchor tenant because you're not going to get another big tenant in there but but another you know business that would draw more so you can add more commercial to that or is it is that just too much for the entire area in general?

Madam Chair Commissioner Perot, that's a great question. When we design the breakout of how much commercial space do we want to develop here, we look at all sorts of stuff. We look at absorption, market trends, rent per square foot. We settled on this because we thought that this is what would be what would work here given the amount of frontage, given the visibility, and just generally the amount of space. And you're absolutely right. That was my first question is like, well, why don't we just put another little commercial center down here? There's just not demand for a second anchor tenant, right? This is still on the edge. It's not in the middle of town, right? But what we need to do is be providing services for people who do live and will continue to live out here. And so, yeah, we looked at it. This is the right amount of commercial we feel to serve the surrounding area and be able to synergize with the center on the north side. We can't have the double layer pads. It just doesn't doesn't rent well and therefore could remain empty.

Even given the traffic that Costco will bring, CUNA, all of that, it's still not working, huh?

Yeah, I mean, we continue to look, Madam Chair, Commissioner Frow, we continue to kind of monitor that. And we just don't think there's quite enough, just not enough draw there at that point yet.

Any other comments before we close the public hearing? All right, Ethan, thank you very much.

Thank you so much.

May I get a motion to close the public hearing, please?

So moved. Seconded.

It's been moved and seconded to close the public hearing. All those in favor, say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed? Motion carries.

Madam Chair.

Commissioner Smith.

Ethan, the second, that it's not a conflict of interest. You know, I'd love to grab a beer chat about this with you. I think to a larger point, what really I struggle with about this project is separating... my would-be legislative hat from kind of the judicial role that we serve there's a part of me that looks at this corridor um and says you know honestly like a lot of this product would be great here and you know maybe we can kind of just you know make it work and fudge it a little bit um and and it's close enough and you know and that may be where city council ends up with you know kind of the hat that they wear, the far more expansive hat. I just don't think the integration abuses is there for what this future land use and for what this zoning asks for. And I think that if there was a world where this came to us as a rezone and they were able to justify that rezone and approach that this is high density residential and retail, I might be able to get there. But again, that's a different conversation with a different set of staff analysis and different implications there. I agree on the density issue. Density is not my problem here. I would honestly love to see more density here if it was able to make it work in an integrated fashion. This is a really important pair of corners and a really important pair of corridors for South Meridian. And so I think this is really important that we get it as right as possible. And I struggle a lot with kind of us, the government, telling what the developer who's done far more market research about what people want, et cetera, to do and what is right. But in the interest of the city and in kind of what city council has set forward of the vision, I just don't think that this... Complies with that. And again, it's, you know, I agree. I think a post zoning world is interesting. Every once in a while, look at what's going on in Houston. I think it's really cool. But that's not the place that we're at right now. So, you know, again, I think this is an argument that the applicant can make to city council because they wear a different hat than we do. But from a planning and zoning commission perspective, I don't think I can support this. I really appreciate what they're trying to do. And I appreciate the... overall value that this would provide for the city. But I think it is not aligned with what the plan calls for regarding integration abuses for specifically for pedestrians and for non vehicle users. So again, separating what I really want to be able to support this. I really want to be able to like this and put um this commission's gonna be a hat behind it but i just don't think we can from the lens of the hat that we wear for those reasons um

i agree as well there were two things that you had said um a quasi public park which was on the the south side but as a person driving down amity or um highway 69 i would i would never stop there because it seems like it's just for that particular community and um i can't tell if you re um You realigned where the pool was on the south side, but you have to go through two parking lots and pass three buildings in order to get to the pool if I'm living in one of those apartment buildings. And that seems like where you have your public park, I would rather see the pool there because then it's kind of in the middle of all the buildings, not all the way at the top by the commercial. i 100 agree that everything on highway 69 and everything on amenity road needs to be commercial i 100 agree that there should be a grocery store there that's actually a great thing because i think the long-term goal for the city of meridian is have people who live on south of 84 to live work and play there because then you have less trips going back and forth the costco is going to be a great addition and I think the way they're working with it is that it's going to have its own drive aisle to get in and out, hopefully getting people off of Highway 69 so that it doesn't create that bottleneck of people turning in and out like we do see on 10 Mile and Chindin more often than not with the Costco up there. The convenient pedestrian experience is there if you're on your side. So I can't get past Amity Road being a major arterial road dividing this project into two. I cannot see and through the lens of our code and the city, this being one project because of that. Although I understand 100% that you want to be able to take advantage of the STARS program with ITD, so it needs to be. And if it needs to be, then it needs to either be rezoned, not mixed use community or something else that still gives you the ability to be able to take advantage of that program, but in a way that works. And then finally, you know, where people will be taking the interior roads to this. Absolutely. But like Pauline and Sandy said, they're not going to walk to the grocery store. They're going to end up driving because in the wintertime, it's going to be too dangerous. And if you have a senior community at the north side of your project, all of those seniors are going to have to find different ways of transportation and it's not going to be walking. and i don't know what kind of community is going to be to the south of you but if there's more patio homes and that and that's great that they don't have to get on amnity or highway 69 they can take interior roads to be able to do that but there's going to be less walking than than you think especially people who live on the ground floor so with that in mind um I also cannot support this, although I think it is needed. And what you have here is it's some version of this. It's just not this version. The grocery store is fantastic. The outer pads are fantastic along Amity. To get that trip capture, to be able to make those sales, to be able to do all those road improvements are key. having those tall buildings next to patio homes and single-family homes is a little problematic, but if you were just learning about those projects now, then this design might change a little bit. Commissioner Perot?

Madam Chair, I agree with everything you said. I couldn't have said it better. There's absolutely a need. I have no opposition to the concept as a whole and the businesses that you'd like to go there. I really want to say yes to this, but as Commissioner Smith shared, our goal is not to necessarily do the big picture approval of this. I just, I want to say to you as a main player in this area and in general, that the idea that residents will stay within their mixed use area to access their services is not really proven thing, right? Like we, so I was not a decision maker in the district at 10 Mile. Personally, I think that if you have high end employment in an area that folks probably aren't going to live in the apartments that are in that. They're going to live in a four bedroom house in a subdivision because they're making enough in a high employment area to not live in the apartments. I don't always assume that the residents of that are going to use the services that are going to come into that. You know, I doubt that folks that are living in an apartment are going to, you know, they're going to patron a plastic surgeon's office that might be in the office building, right? I mean, just like we kind of have to take the idea that folks are going to be using these services that are here, that they're actually going to want those services. So, So when it comes to conversations about pedestrian access and internal and external, I'm always kind of keeping in mind the fact that we can get all into the numbers of who's staying in, you know, who's the trip capture and all of that. But we don't even know if those residents are actually going to use whatever ends up going in there. So. I just want to keep that in mind as we're having that conversation too, because it is, you know, we're talking about design in terms of pedestrian activity and flow of this, but that's making a lot of assumptions about the residents actually using these services. And these services, with the exception of the grocer, may not even be at the financial level that residents who live in an apartment are going to be able to use. That's just the reality of it. So that's just my two cents on that.

Mayor Mrakas, I don't know, I don't chair there's nothing further that I can add that has not been said already.

You directing something here yeah Madam chair. Commissioner Smith.

After considering all staff applicant and public testimony, I move to recommend denial to the city council of file number H-2025-0007 as presented in the staff report due to a lack of adequate multimodal interconnectivity and a lack of functional integration between the different uses, particularly regarding quasi-public spaces and I guess that multimodal interconnectivity as well. Seconded.

It's been moved and second to deny item number H2025-007 Syringa Crossing. All those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed? Motion carries. I'll take one more motion.

Madam Chair.

Commissioner Gelsomino.

I'd like to make motion to adjourn tonight's meeting. Second.

It's been moved and second to adjourn. All those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed? Motion