City Council - Regular Meeting

All right, I'll call the meeting to order. We'll begin with the invocation and the pledge. Almighty God, send down upon those who hold office in this city the spirit of wisdom, compassion, and justice. Grant that with steadfast purpose we may faithfully serve our community, seeking the common good, protecting the vulnerable, and promoting the well-being and harmony of all who dwell here. Amen. Pledge.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which

All members are present and accounted for. We have two announcements. The Falls Park parking lot will be closed on Thursday, August 6th through Saturday, August 8th to allow for the installation of the new pond bridge. Park visitors are encouraged to plan ahead and use alternate parking locations. The Post Falls Police Department is hosting Coffee with a Cop next Wednesday, August 12th from 9 to 10.30 a.m. at the Range Market in Post Falls. This is a great opportunity to meet the new Chief of Police, Mark Brandl, as well as other members of the Police Department. Any amendments to the agenda tonight?

We have none tonight, sir.

Declarations of conflict, ex parte contacts, and site visits.

Mr. Mayor, I do have a conflict report in regard to the McKinley Meadows special use permit appeal due to a previously existing relationship professionally from my law firm with one of the parties in that matter and I will be recusing myself from the vote in that matter.

Very good. Please present the consent calendar.

Item A is the minutes from the July 21st, 2026 city council meeting. And item B is payables July 22nd through August 5th, 2026. Item C is state line tower site first additions minor subdivision final plat. And item D is designation of acting city clerk.

Questions on the consent calendar?

I move to approve the consent calendar as presented. Second.

Motion and a second. Further discussion? Roll call please.

Plew?

Aye.

Malloy?

Aye.

Ziegler?

Aye.

Mosby?

Aye.

Luca?

Aye.

Stiglitter? Aye.

Motion passes. Thank you. We're on to public hearings. Item A, McKinley Meadows Special Use Permit Appeal. And we don't do these very often. So to sort of lay the groundwork here, this is a quasi-judicial context for what we're doing. So when we're hearing all of the testimony and making a decision, This is not based on what we want or what we like. We're looking at a set of standards and we're acting basically as a judge, applying property rights and city standards to see if they conform or can be made to conform. And so we'll be going through the process and then looking at the sort of the questions, the standards as we go through to see does it fit, does it not fit with city standards and then making a decision based on that. This is a de novo hearing, so we're not treating it as an appellate hearing or anything. This is a redo from what happened at Planning and Zoning. We start from the beginning and hear everything again. And a special use, so a special use is determined to be by nature compatible with the corresponding zone with the recognition that there may need to be special conditions attached to make it fully compatible, to make it fit in or can the conditions be met at all is sort of the question and and so there's multiple options for how the council chooses to act on this and we'll see how this goes so so for those watching again if if you have somebody speaking on your behalf then you do not speak otherwise there will be an opportunity to speak with the forums that were turned in there all right having said all that is that all correct Mr Harrington

Yes, it is, and I would just add that we're appealing the SUP portion, SUP 26-3. Okay, then I will open the public hearing.

all right uh good evening mayor westland council president molloy and members of city council john manley the planning manager here at the city post falls presenting the staff report for the mckinley meadows special use permit case file sup 26-3 so the owner at the time of the application was shane anderson of which i believe wild llc is the the current owner of this property which the applicant state clarity on that the applicant rep is MacArthur engineering I'm Scott MacArthur so you're being asked as you introed but the details are to review the proposed special use permit as there is an appeal to the May 12th sup decision from the Planning and Zoning Commission and as stated this is a de novo hearing there are some matters that are contingent on this the PUD development was approved by the Planning and Zoning Commission and the subdivision was approved. So therefore if the SUP was reversed, then those would then fail as well by default. The current land use on this is a single family home. It is over the Ratchford Prairie Aquifer and this site would be serviced by City of Post Falls for both wastewater and water. So the location of the proposal is as you see here in this hatched area right there at the dead end of Montgomery Place. You can see the location. You have the elementary school just to the northwest of there. You do see some notable items. This is the Boys and Girls Club location. You got the library. There's also transit that goes down Spokane. And then you have the Mullen Avenue just to the south. Some zoning you see here surrounding this is you see everything's in the R1 that is abutting the proposed location. You do have this railroad right away just to the south. Other zoning that you see here, the brown, that is a medium density zoning designation with the R3, the high density being that orange color. To the east where I referred to the Boys and Girls Club and the library, that's in that limited commercial, that's the pink area. To the west, a little bit further in the gray, that's industrial, and then to the south, south of the tracks, you see the community commercial services, that's that red, and that kind of gives you the highlight of all the diverse zoning in the area. So zooming in on the site a little bit, you see here, here's the site location where they are proposing the development. Here's that pre-existing house that they intend to preserve and add 17 additional lots, which I'll show you in a bit. I did take advantage, recently there was a drone image that I took of the rail corridor that I had delivered to me for a different purpose, but this site does happen to lie within the drone imagery, so you see the site right here, this is where these trees are at, and then this is where that go back where you see some of this debris, that can be seen right here along that trail corridor. Here zooming in a little bit more gives you a glimpse of the Montgomery Place and the dead end cul-de-sac. And then this morning I took the liberty to go by and look, this is what it looks like on the opposing side coming from the east looking at it. So here's what that street corridor looks like. It's designed, when I was told from the engineering department that this is 50 feet curb to curb and a typical standard residential street is 32 feet today. So they had a little bit wider width back in the day. I went down the street a little bit further. Here's a view of the cul-de-sac. And then there's a sign here where you see where we posted the sign for the proposed change, and this is the looking down towards the site. And there is a gradient difference here where you see that it does slope down there. You can't see it too well through the image. But you see here in their proposed layout for their SUP, they are looking at figuring out a way to mitigate some of that drainage, which I'll let the applicant go into that, but that gives you an idea of what the surrounding area looks like for the site. So now going into the special use permit review criteria. So the first one is, does the proposal, does the implementation of the special use permit will or will it not conform to the purposes of the applicable zone? So this was zoned R1. And looking at the R1 zone intent, it says for one single family home on one lot of minimum size or larger, and accessory uses compatible with the residential uses. So what they are proposing is a single family home on their individual lots of minimum size for a cottage development. The proposed development intends to construct, like I said, cottage homes. Looking at the base density, and one of the PUD exemptions that was approved contingent on this, is you see the minimum lot area of 6,500. It comes to approximately 6,477, so that was about a 4% increase, and they requested that as part of the PUD, subject to the special use permit as part of this proposal. Looking at the second criteria is whether the proposed use constitutes an allowable special use permit established by the Title 18. And you can see here at 18.24.32, within the cottage home design standards, that's where this excerpt comes from, is cottage homes may also be approved with a special use permit in the CCS and the R1 zoning district. So there was some thoughtful consideration when we adopted the cottage homes is at times when you have developments like this let's just say you had an industrial development just adjacent to this and you're having cold storage reefer trucks or maybe you had fumes a paint booth industrial business nearby having a development next to this in a ccs may not be the greatest or there may need to be mitigating measures measures to deal with those kind of compatibilities which you may not otherwise just want to permit it outright in a ccs Similarly, in the R1 zone, a project like this, what are the mitigating measures that can be placed on it if there's some incompatibilities that are brought out in their proposals? So that's why that condition was placed and put in that code change that we'd done a few years ago for cottages. Whether the proposed use will or will not be compatible with the health, safety, and welfare of the public or the land uses in the vicinity, that would be the third criteria. In the staff report, you saw the transportation analysis, but to highlight that is this site would be accessed off of Montgomery Place with emergency access being from Seltice Elementary. So, sorry to be going back and forth, but out here on the west end, they are intending to put some emergency access out on the west only. So it'd be emergency access only out to the west as far as vehicular access. I will note now there is an intent to provide pedestrian connectivity that direction as well as potential pedestrian connectivity to that future rail corridor at such time there's ever a trail system placed along that. Another highlight is the projected traffic volumes will be within the city standards of under 1,200 trips a day. So for that road section you see for that neighborhood, they look at that as are they gonna exceed that with what they're proposing because that would suggest an incompatibility from an engineering review and it's to stay under that from an acceptable level.

Is there any data about what the existing trips per day are?

I know there's 14 homes on it. I could probably, when I get done here, maybe Rob can come up and discuss the traffic volumes and on that analysis. As far as the sewer, there is existing facilities nearby. It can be facilitated and there's capacity at our wastewater facility. Domestic water, if you drove by it anytime, anybody who happens to drive down to Chase, they are actually working on that connection now and working on that project They needed to get that done so the school could operate at the time of opening. So they took it upon a risk to go ahead and do a portion of that through that parking lot, through that agreement. And so there would be domestic water nearby there. So again, there's the site. What are the proposed use? Will or will not comply with the goals and policies found in the comprehensive plan. That would be the fourth goal, or fourth criteria, sorry. So goal one, grow and sustain a balanced, resilient economy for Post Falls, providing community prosperity and fiscal health. So where this could be considered complementary with the goal one would be, I think we've looked at some of the fiscal analysis recently. And we also looked at, we have the housing needs study. There has been some citation that having Mixed increased residential density near where infrastructure already is could provide rooftops near amenities nearby, which I cited those earlier, as well as some of the fiscal balance that gets in dealing with some of the long-term and with the infrastructure could also be offset with some infill densification at the appropriate locations. Goal two, maintain and improve the provision of high quality, affordable, and efficient community services. In Post Falls, I think where one could look at this is with the increased rooftops, provides additional housing near, I already mentioned those amenities, so if you have mixed incomes near schools, it provides diverse access to those, whether it be the Boys and Girls Club, the library, the elementary school, transit. Plan forward and establish types of quantities of land uses in post fall supporting community needs and the city's long term sustainability. I think much of what I already said would point to that goal as well. Same with policy one. Some of what I said could be considered meeting some of these elements within the comprehensive plan. Same with policy two. I will highlight the future land use map. You see here it is. The light yellow is low density residential. So in the comp plan, that considers anything less than eight dwelling units per acre as being low density residential as far as the current comprehensive plan. So their proposed, I think it's 6.72 dwelling units, would be under that threshold for being consistent with the future land use map. Compatibility with surrounding land uses as far as a planning perspective looking at it. Single family detached housing of various sizes around other various single family aren't considered incompatible. And I think the staff report kind of goes into the infrastructure and service plans as being available as well as the traffic patterns which I'll get Rob up to talk about the existing traffic on that. Policy eight, encourage compatible infill development and redevelopment of vacant and underutilized properties within city limits. I think one could consider this 2.68 acres as being underutilized. Policy 15 and 19 kind of tie together as far as looking at future housing needs, serving all ages, clustering units, providing service efficiencies and creating opportunities for private and community space. I think in this instance it would be more private. wanted to highlight this is where the excerpt i took this out of the housing needs its homeownership strategy to diverse housing needs to meet so meet the needs and so whether this is done through a single development or multitude developments or developments through time you could get various densities and price points and create that diverse housing for some attainability to address some of the workforce housing issues and housing in general for the city of Post Falls. So again, there's their site. This is the agencies, or these are the agencies that we notified. And of them, no real negative, mostly neutral, no comment or like the fire they would coordinate at the time of development. They would comment on the construction plans and make sure they can get in and out of there per their needs. City Council may attach conditions including but not limited to, and here's the six conditions that you could consider as far as part of the special use permit. Minimizing adverse impact on other development. Controlling the sequence and timing of the development. Controlling the duration of the development. assuring that the development is maintained properly, controlling the location and setbacks of the development, requiring more restrictive standards than those generally required in the zoning ordinance. Here is the image of their site. Any non transportation questions for me?

So the special use permit essentially allows them to get one, maybe two more units in here. Otherwise, effectively the same or similar thing could go in?

They would do that through the PUD process. And if it was allowed through the PUD for a single family. So that would be correct. They didn't necessarily have to go through a special use permit if they were wanting to just do R1 PUD and they met that density requirement in the PUD. So that'd be correct. They wouldn't be cottage homes. Correct.

Why PUD? What are they allowed to do with R1 without a PUD or a special use permit?

So with a PUD, I think you can't go above, you can go within 10% of the base density. And so since the base density is like 6,500 square foot, they're at 6,477. That allows them for doing an ask of just typical single family homes in a PUD. So it was because they wanted to do the cottage aspect in the R1 zone, that created the hook into doing the special use permit process.

Sure. But if they just wanted to replant their two and some change acres, how many acres is this?

2.68.

2.6 acres and not do a PUD or a special use because they're zoned R1, correct?

Correct.

What would they be allowed to do?

They would be able to do whatever they can stick in a private road and divvy out 6,500 square foot lots along that. So I haven't entertained that layout that may have some dimensional constraints. I don't know what that would look like. Maybe the applicant could assist with that answer.

Cause these, these lots are cottage homes are too. So there are 2,400 square feet. but R1 would require 6,500 square feet. Is that right?

Yeah, and actually I can opine on that a little bit now that my brain's working a little bit on that question. So there was a pre-existing subdivision that was approved, and there was like nine lots.

Okay.

How many again?

Nine. I think it was called Montgomery Rose was the subdivision. It was done I think in the 2000s. Okay.

Perfect. Thank you.

Yep.

And is that approval still valid? Could they?

No, it expired. So division is, I think, only up to three years, such that you've got to have shows. You could ask for extensions, city council, but it's long past. So no matter what, no matter what they came for, they're going to have to come look for some additional entitlements.

Thank you.

So are we ready for Rob to come up and talk about whether there was a look at the 14 houses on there versus the additional 17?

Good evening, honorable mayor, members of the council, Robert Paulus, city engineer. Councillor Luca, you specifically asked what the existing traffic patterns are on Montgomery Rose. In the staff report, we identified that there were under 200 vehicles per day. That was based upon a projection utilizing the 14 homes that were there. A typical single-family residential home produces about 10 vehicles per day. That's 140 trips. We made a projection as to what the ball fields in the area, the school, the church, et cetera, might utilize in that area, plus delivery vehicles, and that's why we kept at around the 200 vehicles per day. Since the time when the staff report was put together, we have gotten more updated information in that area and in the city in general and based upon aggregated data from the year 2025, the roadway has 280 vehicles per day on an average day on that roadway. Out of that, the typical average hour has between 10 to 15 vehicles per hour going on it. And the highest day's use is usually on Sunday in the afternoon when it jumps up to about 18 vehicles on a typical Sunday afternoon. What we would anticipate with a subdivision adding 18 homes would be about another 180 homes per day, or excuse me, another 180 trips per day plus whatever would end up with mail, garbage, amazon.com, or whoever else was doing deliveries, but we would still be well underneath in my opinion, the 500 vehicles per day, which a low volume road is. Our standard single family residential neighborhood, we're looking for roadways under 800 vehicles per day as a calm roadway. Once you get over 800 and to the 800 to 1,200, you're still considered a residential street. But you tend to start seeing more people complaining about speeds on those roadways and the concerns about traffic just going back and forth all day long. Does that encompass what you were looking for for information?

MIKE BOYLE. Yeah, I think if I'm doing the math on the fly, it sounds like that the projection is that this would almost double the traffic on that street. MIKE BOYLE. That would be correct. MIKE BOYLE. Thank you.

Mr. Paulus, what's the road classification of Montgomery?

Montgomery Rose is a local residential street. As Mr. Manley pointed out, it is currently 50 feet wide from curb face to curb face. Our typical single family residential roadway would be 32 feet for a similar circumstance.

Yeah, but we didn't change the classification.

We would not change the classification.

Any other questions? Further questions of staff before the applicant? All right, applicant can come forward.

Hi, good evening, honorable mayor, council, Scott McArthur here on behalf of Wild LLC, the developer of this project here tonight. We're here again on behalf of McKinley Meadows, which as staff pointed out, we have approval from planning and zoning for a PUD, a special use permit and a subdivision. And I apologize, you're gonna hear some papers ruffling because my eyes are getting bad. I'm printing on large paper now, so. I have a presentation here tonight. Follow along here. Play, where's your play button?

Well.

think it's f5 near bottom right by the volume button yeah thank you okay thank you i play with powerpoint a lot obviously so again scott mcarthur here on behalf of wild llc tonight you're looking at a project and i try to not reiterate what staff has presented to you tonight i'll just try to elaborate on how we arrived where we are with this development Mr. Anderson owns this property currently. It's in the process of being purchased. The developer has already invested a considerable amount of money in offsite improvements, considerable amount of money in design, and we've had projects in this city that are similar and have been very successful, and we'll get to that here in a minute. Again, the property location, property zoning and surrounding zoning is R1. You have R3, CCS, industrial in the area. Again, great buffer for those various zonings. And then you look at the future land use map, and as Mr. Manley mentioned, this density falls well within those requirements for the future land use for this area. It's part of the original cherry addition to Post Falls, which is shown here. This is the location. As you can see, this lot at the time of platting was originally much larger than the rest. If you look at the lots that are located down along the railroad tracks, much larger lots. And I think that was just a topographic constraint at the time that was trying to be addressed. but it does leave that position open for future development as currently under city's desire today to have infill projects. So why obtainable housing? We have a workforce, we have our parents, we have our children, our veterans and our seniors. They need a place to go. My client, Noah Stamm and his wife Emily Butler have worked hard to seek out these options this was their dream uh to build homes that their friends could afford to live here and i'm kind of proud to say that the typical range the majority of the homes sold at our recent project the ark those homeowners are between the age of 22 and 29. And that's what we want here. That's what my parents came to Post Falls to do back in the day. They bought a home at a young age, had kids, raised a family, and this is an option for that to happen in a crazy economy right now. You're not gonna see those options anywhere else. This is a great piece of property. For this solution and we hope to do more in the city. This is a There's a lot of work that's gone into this especially with the school districts Property working through getting that water extended to the site and again, we'll talk about that in a minute But there's just so much to talk about but the opportunity for homeownership uh is much desired for our workforce i'm a business owner i have people in my business that rent apartments and they want to live in a home like this and i just think that is what a great option being provided this was the original preliminary plat that was submitted addressing the project from the subdivision standpoint Again, 2.67 acres, roughly about 6.7 units per acre. Minimum lot size is 3,452 square feet. And we have one existing home and 17 proposed cottage homes. So if you look at that, and there were some questions just regarding the PUD. So if you were to take that 2.67 acres and break that out into 6500 square foot lots you would get 17.9 lots on this piece of property. So you'd almost have 18. We're at 18 now. We weren't at 18 so that's why we had to request the PUD. that would require a private row. There's a lot of conditions that would go along with that, but we wanted something where first-time homeowners, we have shared common space, another requirement for PUD, the cottage home requirement, And so we provided almost a half acre, a little over a half acre of open space on this project. We've addressed all of the conditions that have been presented to us by Planning and Zoning in our development. Again, we have off-site infrastructure improvements that we had to put in to even make this a reality. Those improvements are nearly complete. As of today, my client took the responsibility to proceed with that, just the confidence of this project. THE OTHER REQUIREMENT WAS PARKING. AND WE'LL GET TO PARKING HERE IN JUST ONE SECOND. BUT AGAIN, LOOKING AT ACCESS AND UTILITIES. SO AGAIN, THE OFFSITE IMPROVEMENTS, I DON'T KNOW WHAT SHOWS UP HERE. AND I TURNED IT OFF. THERE WE GO. The clicker's not working. So off-site improvements. We've worked with the post-fall school district to obtain an easement in exchange for infrastructure repairs to their dilapidating parking lot. We have to have that work complete by August 14th when the teachers show back up to school. So we're in the process of completing that work. We extended an eight inch water line from Chase Road through a 20 foot easement to our project site here terminated it tested that water line with the city of Post Falls. This is to the tune of over two hundred thousand dollars in cost to our client to make this project a reality. That eight inch water line upon approval of the project will be extended through the project and tie into a four inch steel line that currently serves the residences that live or that are on Montgomery Place. So we're increasing capacity for those not just from a domestic or an irrigation use but also for a fire suppression use. And that eight inch water line in my opinion is a much needed loop for that area. This easement will also serve as a secondary emergency ingress egress easement for not just the people who live in this community of Montgomery or McKinley Meadows, excuse me, but those who live on Montgomery Place. They can utilize this emergency ingress egress in the event of an accident or fire. It will be opened. You know, emergency services can enter the site from Celtice and vice versa. We need to move people. This is an opportunity.

City of Post Falls again provides the water.

We do loop the water through this project. The City of Post Falls currently has a 12 inch sewer main that traverses through this property and through the Celtice Elementary School property. Through this property there is not an easement over that line. So currently the city doesn't have access to maintain the manholes. They don't have access to the site. So part of our conditions with planning and zoning is we agreed with staff that we would create that access and we would build that access road through our open space and the city would be able to provide the maintenance to those manholes that are there. Dry utilities, everything exists adjacent to this property. We did listen at planning and zoning and we went back to the drawing board and we provided

parking.

We met with our request, we met the minimum parking requirements. We exceeded the minimum parking requirements, which was why the city allowed the project to move forward. But we went back and we said, hey, look, we'll widen the driveways to 16 feet, providing two parking spaces on each lot. And we also doubled our guest parking. So we have nine off-site or off-lot parking spaces for 18 lots and we have two parking spaces minimum. Some driveways are larger. So we have at least two and a half parking spaces per home in this development. That's more than the standard development that gets approved in the city of Post Falls today. So we're happy to find that and work that out with the city.

Is any of that off-street in a garage, or is that not envisioned?

That's not even including the garage, which would be an option. But as we discussed, everybody has stuff. And you put your stuff in your garage until you have to go buy a storage unit and make that work. uh oh sorry we'll go back to the private street section here uh this is montgomery lane this is a private street section that will be owned and maintained by the homeowners in this community it provides for stormwater conveyance sufficient snow storage pedestrian access and it will be a nice beautiful street with sufficient curbing on the edges Again the off-site infrastructure improvements that we've completed we have an approved set of plans from the city of Post Falls we have a construction improvement agreement that's been approved by city council and we're almost complete with those improvements which will be in time for school to start August 14th. On site, as you can see, this is kind of the updated version. This has been resubmitted. We have one round of comments that came back on the infrastructure improvements. We immediately redress those minor comments, have those back the next day. And we've been working with engineering, streets, water, wastewater to get this project approved. So that is in the works. We're just at this standstill right now with the special use permit. typical lot sorry it's turned we're meeting and exceeding all of the minimum requirements for a cottage home in this development so not only do we have over a half acre of open space in the community for those 18 lots to enjoy but we also have more than sufficient space we exceed the requirements for cottage homes we just want to make sure there's space for those homeowners the first-time homebuyers veterans seniors our parents our friends

And what is the envisioned square footage, sorry if I'm jumping ahead, of the home itself without the garage?

So the area, the homes vary. So each home should be, they should vary. So they're around 1,000, I think they vary from about 984 to just over 1,000 square feet. And then you have your garage on top of that. I do, and we'll get to look at those vision. We have a project called The Arc that's 37 cottage homes we've built so far. And those, there's a need. There's a list of people, some of them are in the room tonight, that want this project. They want to live here. They want to raise their kids here. They want to send their kids to Southeast Elementary and to Mullin Trail, the Boys and Girls Club. But we'll get to those square footages. I just didn't want to misquote that. So this is the green space that's shown on this particular lot plan shows the open space surrounding this particular lot with an easement. So part of the conditions of approval is that we requested reduced setback to allow for pedestrian access between the open space. So you can actually navigate your entire way around the property on a maintained piece of property, which is the HOA will govern this. It will be protected. It's a small community in the community. And I really like the way that these homes fit well in that area. Visually, the aesthetics are amazing. And again, we'll get to that here in just a second. So another issue you may have read about during the Planning and Zoning Commission was the idea of this site floods. We have no historical data. We've had a geotechnical engineer from Inland Empire Geotech on site. We've excavated 12 foot deep holes. We've looked at this site. We've tried to put water in holes. We can't get water to sit in the holes. This is a sandy silt, not silt, I would say more sandy soil. It just, it takes the water. So regardless of the flooding concept or ideas or concerns, We have elevated the site to bring in the utilities we need to serve this with gravity sewer. Again, a major expense, but this is how the property should be developed adjacent to the railroad, which again in the future will become a trail. I saw the one train come through today. So there's not much need for that anymore, unfortunately. So here's a quick picture of conceptual renderings of the homes we originally sought to construct. This was what our idea was for the ark, and again, our idea for this project. I wanted to bring this up because I think it's a beautiful rendering. This was a thought. behind my clients that they put on paper. And I don't know how you do that with AI, but sure. So again, another concept here. These are actually homes that are built at the Arc. This will be the type of home that will be constructed. Every one is unique, different. There's no two homes sitting next to each other that are the same. They have a different facade. They have a different color. They have a different layout. It's unique. You're not moving into a tract home neighborhood that's the same home again and again and again. So beautiful homes. My clients have spent a considerable amount of money with a landscape architect to make sure their projects are above par. They waste no expense. They're hiring the right people to put this together. This is a picture of the gazebo that we originally had planned for the ARC project. We have sport court ideas, open space. We're trying to utilize these areas, even these emergency ingress, egress areas, access roads as usable space for the kids, you know, whatever they're playing. My kids come home with these crazy ideas about games sometimes. I'm like, I don't even know. You guys ever heard of Foursquare or I don't know, Kickball? But they don't play that anymore. So here's a picture of the park. This is roughly four point, or excuse me, 0.42 acres at the arc. This is our open space. Did my clients have to build a professional pickleball court? No, but that's what they wanted to build because that's the type of development they want to bring to the city. and they wanted to give the residents of the ARC. So I'm proud of this. I think I'm proud of my clients. I think they're taking a huge step in trying to bring that workforce obtainable housing here to the city of Post Falls. Again, we don't need to address the subdivision review criteria, PUD criteria, and I think Mr. Manley did a great job of running through the special use permit criteria. I will stand for questions, but I would like to invite one of my clients, Emily Butler, up here to speak after I answer your questions. Questions for the applicant?

May I ask, so it's already zoned R1, is that correct?

Correct.

Okay, why go for a special use permit instead of a zone change where you would have been allowed to build the 2,400 square foot lots as a cottage home?

I think the special use permit was more of a, in my opinion, a more clean approach to this for the city of Post Falls, for the staff presentation-wise. I think trying to change a zone when there's a blanket area, there is R3 and CCS and industrial in the area, but I think this is a, we don't want to establish a precedence in the area of let's change all the zoning and really, this is a, large platted lot adjacent to a school and I think it was a great fit for that area it's not apartments there is a need for apartments this is not it this is a an opportunity in the city to have affordable housing in an existing neighborhood and I think I was born and raised here I think this is a this is not my forte but I'm understanding specific areas and I've brought several projects to the city that are under the densities that they could develop because I want to see it develop properly. And again I think this is a proper development with a substantial amount of work going into not just the site but the offsite improvements. So regardless of what gets built there's a substantial amount of work that goes into making this possible even if it were to be the R1 homes that single family homes. And I did want to point out, just real quick, I apologize. I did skip over that. The original Montgomery Roads project was approved for nine lots. Those were 9,000 square foot lots. R1 is 6,500 square feet. So you would have roughly about 12. You could get 12 9,000 square foot lots in the Montgomery Roads project. but they only went for nine. But under R1 zoning with 6,500 square feet, you could get 17 lots. So I kind of skipped over that little piece there earlier.

Further questions? All right. Thank you. Thank you so much. Now on to public testimony.

Would she want to? We're out of time. I'm so sorry. Yeah, was she going to? I'm so sorry.

Emily Miller would like to speak I just messed that up I'm sorry during public comment nope during my presentation I forgot to bring her up I apologize no we're out of time for this but I think you can do it during public comment okay I don't see a reason why you can't do that okay speaking in favor Kendall Not wishing to speak in favor, Ben Blakely. Not wishing to speak in favor, Alex McCall. Not wishing to speak in favor, Kyle Bridge. Not wishing to speak in favor, Todd Starr. Not wishing to speak in favor, Ryan Walde. Not wishing to speak, in favor, Haley Naccarato. In favor, Joey Naccarato. Wishing to speak is not checked. Do you wish to speak? No, okay. Not wishing to speak, in favor, Jackson Summer. Wishing to speak, in favor, Shane Anderson. Go ahead.

Mr. Mayor, council members, I appreciate the opportunity to come. I didn't make last meeting. There's a lot of layers in this project. Yeah, to the people that I've lived with for 10 years, Some of them are my neighbors. Some of them are my friends. And some of them are even closer than that. That would be family. My son grew up. We moved in here when we were six, when he was six. And change is always tough for anyone. I do believe that the change with regards to single family homes is an honorable change. Before this project got handed over to Mr. Stamm, I tried to get a road coming from a different direction just to lessen the impact to my neighbors. And at the end of the day, I just want to say that I appreciate what NOAA is doing. I appreciate the fact that I personally employ nine people as a landscaper. And it's extremely hard for young families to find a place to live. My choosing him to be the developer hinges directly on that, and I just need to say that out loud. Thank you.

Thank you.

Mr. Mayor, before we move on to neutral, are there any comments on any of the not wishing to speak that are relevant, or they're just all in favor and not wishing to speak?

Oh, you're right. I'm sorry. I missed a few comments on here, didn't I?

If you're willing to read them.

Thank you, yes. From Ben Blakely, I am in favor of approving the McKinley Meadows Special Use Permit. My brother and sister-in-law live in the ARC development and they absolutely love it. I believe that McKinley Meadows will bring something truly positive to the community. From Ryan Walde, in favor, I support the McKinley Meadows project. I believe it will provide needed housing, contribute to the growth of Post Falls, increase the local tax base, and support our community's long-term economic development. These are the types of projects the city needs for our younger generation to continue positive living in this area. In favor from Joy Naccarato, let young people buy affordable housing, and old, young and old people. And from Jackson Summer, I live in the Arc, which was NOAA's first neighborhood here in Post Falls. I moved in at the end of the year in 2025, and 2026 has been my favorite year of my life. Finally being able to afford a quality home is what I have been looking for for years. We need more of this type of development. Okay. Then wishing to speak in favor, Emily Buehler.

Thank you for letting me speak.

Noah is my husband, and the only thing that would keep him from not being here today is being in the hospital, which he is. He should be fine, but that's where he's at. I've also been a realtor. I was born and raised here. I'm a graduate of Post Falls High School. I've been a realtor for 15 years. I've sold hundreds of homes pretty much for every single track home builder in this area. and there's never been a builder that i've worked with that has cared more about his projects and developments than noah he's up he's there from sun up to sundown every day at the arc and it was truly a passion project of him of his we are the only builder that has created single family housing that's three bedroom two baths for under 400 000 in kootenai county in 2025 and 2026. And we didn't have to do this, but NOAA truly wanted to create affordable housing that would stay affordable housing. So part of our CC&Rs for the ARC is that the single family homes can't be rented. We could have sold, I think four of them, right off the bat to an investor who wanted them as rentals, and we couldn't because that's not what our intention was for them. And not only are they affordable, but they are the nicest product. You only saw glimpses of the photos, but if you had, I mean, they're houses that I would be proud to live in. And it's the exact same product that we wanna take to McKinley Meadows. And it's not just nice houses, it's a nice community. There's a couple of people here that are residences of the ARC and they truly do have a community. They are out there barbecuing, they're out there playing pickleball together. And I know there's a lot of opposition from the neighbors and that's the last thing we wanted. We want to be good neighbors and do right by them. And I just know that once this project is complete, it's something that they would be proud of to have in their backyard if they gave it the chance. But I do think this is truly a great product for the city of Post Falls and the community needs more of this type of housing. Thank you.

Thank you. And now on to those opposed, Glenn Douglas. And Glenn is speaking on behalf of, I believe 21 residents who signed this. Is that correct? You're speaking on behalf of, I think it was 21 residents who signed.

Correct. And all those 21 people, 14 of those are, they represent 14 of the lots of the cherry addition.

All right. So you guys are pooling time. So you have 15 minutes. Okay.

Good evening Honorable Mayor and members of the City Council. My name is Glen Douglas and I live at 303 Montgomery Place. I'm standing here before you tonight representing Unified Residents and Families of the Cherry Edition neighborhood. I've submitted a formal written testimony for the record along with a petition signed by 21 of my neighbors that you saw already, and asking you to sustain this appeal and overturn the approval of the special use permit for McKinley Meadows. Our opposition is not against growth. It's against incompatible design. This project forces 17, including the one existing home, dense cottage units onto a 2.6 acre in the middle of an established low density R1 neighborhood. This goes against the very purpose of zoning and the trust homeowners put in law. Special permits used in this scenario show disregard of the intent to protect homeowners from redevelopment and the use of R1 zoning. The cherry addition is characterized by traditional single family homes on spacious lots introducing this intense high density pocket breaks the zoning promise made to existing homeowners who has invested their savings into this quiet neighborhood. And I might add that since 1954, we were one of the original neighborhoods in Post Falls. It's completely out of character with the surrounding vicinity. And I'm not taking away anything about their design, because I think it looks good too. I just don't feel like it's the right spot in our R1 zoning. Our secondary and perhaps most critical concern is safety and infrastructure. The sole primary access point for this high density project is Montgomery Place. Montgomery Place is a quiet residential street. It was never engineered or intended to absorb the massive influx of daily vehicle trips generated by 17 additional households, which includes delivery trucks and delivery autos besides personal vehicles. Furthermore, relying on an emergency access point that cuts through an adjacent school site introduces severe safety hazards for our local children and could create total logistical gridlock during morning drop-off and afternoon pickup hours. The wildfires in Spokane show the importance of accessibility for emergency equipment, whether it be for fire or medical. Finally, the tight layout creates compressed spaces. Guest parking will inevitably overflow onto our neighborhood street. The design of the project has no street parking because it's so narrow, this road that they're gonna construct. The proposed vehicle turnaround leaves zero margin for error. If a single car is parked illegally or when winter snow storage piles up, emergency vehicles and waste management trucks will be completely blocked. This is a direct hazard to public safety. The Planning and Zoning Commission failed to protect our R1 zone and ignored the clear strain that puts on Montgomery Place. Because this project fails to meet the city's own standards for compatibility, infrastructure capacity, and public safety, we respectfully urge the city council to overturn this permit. Currently there are 23 children of families on Montgomery Place. Families that are established to the point of being permanent residents. We do not want to become a neighborhood of rentals, which statistically, cottage homes are not permanent residences and a lot of times become rentals. The property owner has already moved and is currently renting the existing home. I'm not against him renting, but I am against him selling his property to a developer by illegally obtaining my neighbor's signatures to dissolve our 71-year existing CCNR, which specifically states one residence per lot. By dissolving it, he opened the door for the developer to apply for this SUP. We are currently litigating the dissolvement of our CCNR to be reinstated since a simple majority of 12 homeowners was obtained under false pretenses. The defendant has until this Thursday, 7-6 this Thursday, to respond to the district court pertaining to case number CV28264924 filed on July 1st. I encourage you to review the complaint as part of your decision. In closing, thank you for your time, your consideration, and your dedication to protecting the entirety of our Post Falls neighborhoods. I'm happy to answer any questions you may have. I have one additional thing that I think it was Scott? That Scott mentioned about open space being a half an acre. The half acre, if you want to add it up, it's in multiple pieces of odd shapes. And we could pull that back up and we could show that if need be on the site plot. Adding four more spaces, which I just learned tonight, to the five that were on the plot makes nine, but that would also reduce that open space. And what I just saw was a nice picture of the arc and the sport court. pickleball court, whatever they have there, and I would hard press to see how, looking at your plot again, as to how anything like that would even be feasible on what their proposed site plan is. I mean, it's all piecemealed. It's a good thought, but I don't see how that could ever happen. And I don't know how that would incorporate and be a good thing for the 23 kids of our neighborhood to be able to use, which I just don't think that's feasible to even have it. It just doesn't show the space to where that could even happen. And I will repeat, four more spaces reduces that open space. So a half acre might be good addition, but it certainly isn't all in one piece. Thanks for your time.

Thank you. Thank you.

Wishing to speak in opposition, Amelia Joyce Sizemore.

Hello, I'm Joyce Sizemore. I live over at 829 North Compton Street in the Cherry Edition. Tonight I urge you to uphold our neighborhood's appeal and reverse the Planning and Zoning Commission's approval of McKinley Meadows' special use permit. Adding 17 high density homes to a cul-de-sac with only 13 homes is massive 130% traffic surge. According to the city engineer, the road is under its volume to capacity limit. As a result, the developer wasn't required to do a traffic study. But there is a dangerous gap between spreadsheet capacity and real world operational safety. First, the city's capacity formulas are based on blind off-season assumptions, not actual field data. Based on industry standard ITE trip generation guidelines, adding these 17 new single family homes will introduce a minimum of 34 additional cars, generating roughly 162 new daily trip ends. I realize that I don't have the same numbers that the city engineer did, but I couldn't help but notice that his numbers were closer, were upwards of 180. Because Montgomery Place is a single-axis cul-de-sac, 100% of this traffic will be trapped in a geometric funnel. The new traffic from this development would bottleneck onto Montgomery Place, then spill onto North Compton Street, where our regular traffic happens. Right now, this grid is entirely dormant until Post Fall School District resumes on September 8th. But when it does, this new volume will inevitably strain the only two pressure valves that we have, the intersections at 10th and Compton and Mullen and Compton. Off-season numbers completely overlook that daily school traffic as well as these dense multi-hour little league crowds on weekends and weeknights. Second, the road's theoretical capacity cannot account for this neighborhood being the absolute epicenter of youth and educational transit in Post Falls. Within a few blocks, our streets must absorb daily traffic from the school district bus barn, Mullen Trail Elementary, the Frederick Post ball fields, the Kinder Center, and the Boys and Girls Club. Third, the city's formulas assume a normal, safe roadway. But North Compton Street has a severe deficit. It only has a sidewalk on one side. Right now, the neighborhood children, families, and a constant stream of visiting youth are routinely seen walking down the center line of the road. Forcing 34 more cars into a single-access bottleneck where kids have to walk in the street is a massive safety risk, no matter what the capacity chart says. Minimum capacity thresholds do not excuse the city from its broader liability to protect public safety. We demand responsible growth. So please uphold our appeal and reverse this approval. At the very least table this project until comprehensive multimodal safety audit can be performed this fall when the school is back in session. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you.

And finally, we have Candice Frank wishing to speak in opposition.

Mr. Mayor, city council members, my name is Candice Frank. I have lived here in Pulse Falls for 52 years. 35 years of that, I have lived on West Montgomery Place. I have written several letters that I was going to read to you, most in full detail about the neighborhood. I decided not to bore you with all that, and I'm just going to talk to you briefly about them. One, and they have changed the parking from four, which I was going to write about, to nine. There are only going to have nine overflow parking spaces and one handicapped. Their overflow is going to be on our streets and in our cul-de-sac. When winter comes and they plow our streets the snow gets pushed into a pile in our cul-de-sac. This pile of snow gets rather big depending on the amount we get. This pile of snow is going to block the line of sight to Montgomery Lane. I believe this is going to create a hazardous condition to the people going to and from Montgomery Lane. With extra parking we will have in our cul-de-sac with McKinley Meadows overflow this is going to hinder the snow plows clearing the snow from our street not to mention the cars going to their houses in the cul-de-sac. Cherry addition is also a historical neighborhood. We are the first housing development in Post Falls. Frank Cherry built it. Um, we also are the first to have sidewalks in our, in our city. Now, one of our lots might be a PUD having 18 houses on it. This could take away our historical status from us. And finally, I have talked about this talking about this last one until the end, the planning and zoning hearing. I was infuriated. What happened after the meeting? Several of the commissioners stepped down and were shaking hands with the engineer and the developer. They were up there laughing. I was the last one to leave, and as I was walking out, I saw that my husband had left his drink, and I went back to get it. As I was walking out, I heard someone say something to the fact of, and they thought they would win. That made me even angrier. We were devastated with the loss and then, and they, the city government would act that way. I believe it was the next day or the day after I went to planning and zoning department to make a complaint. I talked with Justin Sautter and John Manley. I told them how unprofessional the commissioners were. This was when John told me that it did not happen because after we left, there were two more votes. I said no. We left when the hearing was over. He said again that there were two more votes after we left. I asked him which ones and he told me that they were the SUP and the PUD. I told him that was not right and that they voted for them before they voted for the McKinley Meadows. He told me again, no. It was after we left. I have since watched the video and he was wrong. It got me thinking, how could planning and zoning vote on an SUP and a PUD without them first voting on the development? It does not make sense. The vote on the SUP was at the two hour and 20 minute mark. The vote on the PUD was at the two hour and 42 minute mark. And the vote on the McKinley Meadows was at the two hour and 47 minute mark. After the vote, they got up and the video turned off. I asked that you declined their SUP and their PUD because they voted on them before the development itself. And they were referencing the arc. The arc to get to it is through an R3 zone. And the road going into it backs up to I-90. does not go through an R1 zoning where there are children.

Thank you. All right. That's the end of the stack of public testimony. The applicant may rebut now.

Good evening again. Scott McArthur. Just run down some items here. Mr. Douglas brought up several points tonight. One thing that he didn't bring up is that this request is consistent with codes, policies, and the goals of the City of Post Falls. We wouldn't be allowed to be here tonight, nor would we have obtained an approval from Planning and Zoning if we were not consistent with those goals, policies, and city codes. The development plans that have been submitted have been submitted within accordance with city standards, and those conditions have generally been met. We're just standing here tonight without an approval, but those plans are resubmitted. Safety and infrastructure. Again, we talk about traffic, and the city engineer, Mr. Paulus, spoke tonight that this traffic, even with an increase with your Amazon drivers, your UPS drivers, and your DHL drivers, you're still under 500 trips per day. And that's in accordance with our traffic counts, that's in accordance with the ITE manual, which assumes roughly about 10 trips per day per single family residence. So if you run those numbers on Montgomery Place and on Montgomery Lane, and then you factor in a 5% increase for deliveries, guests, et cetera, you're still under 500 trips per day. And this street from curb to curb is 50 feet wide. Our typical city street with parking is 32 feet wide. So you have a significant amount of benefit when you're looking at this project. Now, albeit, yes, you can be upset about a neighborhood coming to your neighborhood. I get it. I understand. But understand the codes and understand the requirements and understand those thresholds as you're talking about those. I think that's important. Mr. Douglas brought up the CC&Rs. I know the city doesn't care about CC&Rs. You don't govern CC&Rs. Mr. Anderson Approached his neighbors. He understood that there was there were CC&Rs that were in place out of date 1955 created Those CC&Rs have no bearing on this project moving forward with the goals policies and codes of the city But Mr. Anderson went to those neighbors his friends people he spends the 4th of July with in the cul-de-sac He spoke to them It took the majority to reverse those CC&Rs, the majority of the neighbors who voluntarily got into their car, Not forcibly. He didn't force them to do anything. They voluntarily got into their car. They drove to a title company, had a conversation with a title specialist who explained what they can do, cannot do. They signed away their rights to those CC&Rs. It needs to be said. I'm tired of the lies. I'm tired of whatever happened, whatever conversations happened between Mr. Anderson and the neighbors. I know Mr. Anderson. I know his integrity. I know who he is. Whatever happened, happened. But those people voluntarily drove to the title company in Coeur d'Alene, voluntarily signed their rights away on the CCNRs. You can't get upset about that after the fact. This information's been open to the public, what we've proposed since the start. We've been willing to meet with neighbors. We've been willing to discuss with neighbors. I have friends who are neighbors. I don't want to create opposition. I want to create a good project and do a good project, do a solid for the city, if you want to say it that way. So you can't selectively enforce CC&Rs either. The majority, if not all, of those homeowners in that neighborhood are in violation of those 1955 CC&Rs. They willingly built shops that are five feet from the property line. They willingly park RVs and trailers on their property. They willingly just ignore the CC&Rs until it's time for Mr. Anderson to do something different, and then it's a problem. So you can't, it's against the law to selectively enforce the CC&Rs, so let's stop the CC&R conversation. It's kind of embarrassing to hear a mob have Mr. Anderson served with papers. It really is embarrassing. So again, adding additional parking doesn't distract, doesn't take away from our open space. Yes, we purposely spread out our open space on this project, not because we had to, not because it was the leftovers. We are mass grading this property to create flat open space areas that are usable and functional. One of the conditions at the ARC, if you try to use the pickleball court, Oftentimes, you're using the gazebo as well. So we're trying to spread these out. 23 kids who live in that neighborhood. I used to have a friend who lived in that neighborhood. You know where we played? At the school property. There's two, three schools within walking distance. So this is private open space that is well designed by a landscape architect and myself to be functional, to provide multiple people the option to use those spaces. Just one quick thing, the access to this site, Montgomery Lane, this is not a through street. We're not designing a continuous asphalt pavement section that's separated by a concrete approach and a concrete sidewalk. creating, for all intents and purposes, a speed bump, a traffic calming device. So you're not seeing a thoroughfare of traffic, which you would see if you added 12 lots for a typical subdivision here. The city would require, as approved in 2008, 2009, The continuation of that cul-de-sac the cul-de-sac wouldn't be where it is anymore If you go through that subdivision process the city would make it move to the far west end of this property and that was a condition at that time for approval and Again, Joyce, I didn't get the correct spelling of your last name. Traffic. Traffic was addressed by our city engineer, who's fully aware of the traffic counts. He's looked at this project quite thoroughly. He addressed it during the P&Z hearing as well. Miss Frank brought up that we added some additional parking and yes we did. We have an ADA striped parking space loading zone and nine total parking spaces. That again is two and a half spaces per house and that doesn't happen. I wouldn't be surprised if somebody from the Montgomery Place project tried to park here sometimes. snow storage in the cul-de-sac. I grew up on 20th Street in Post Falls. Our cul-de-sac is of similar size. We would stack snow in the middle. That was the best time of my life as a kid, digging tunnels in the cul-de-sac. This is the area that we stack snow, we plow snow, we put it in the center of cul-de-sacs. It's a great location. It won't inhibit just as it doesn't inhibit anybody with a driveway in the cul-de-sac getting in and out of their house. Because again, this is a separated approach that leads to a private road. And the traffic flows, the position of this cul-de-sac, the way the traffic flows counterclockwise, if you approach, you'll drive along the north side of the piled snow in the cul-de-sac, and you'll enter the Montgomery Lane approach. When you exit, you'll drive on the south side, and you'll exit. There should never be any conflict in that area. Plus, if you've driven in the snow, you're not driving at the same speed you're driving in the summertime as well. And oftentimes, our plows do a great job, but sometimes it's hard to keep up in residential neighborhoods, and so the streets aren't as wide, so you're obviously slowing down as well.

We're out of time if you can wrap up.

You bet. I did shake hands with the planner when I left. It's on public video. I'm not afraid of that. I work with these planners on a daily basis. There's no favoritism. There's no buddy buddy. We're not we're not out celebrating a win after the job. I shook hands with him because he prepared a great presentation to the city. I didn't shake hands with the commissioners. I didn't ask for favors. I didn't look at them. In fact, they argued with me and gave me additional conditions for approval. My client said, meet those conditions. We redesigned the project. After it was done, we met the conditions. Those were the requirements.

We're well over now.

You bet. In closing, I'll stand for any additional questions that you may have.

Super good. Okay, thank you so much. Thank you. Before we close the public hearing, I did want to address a couple items. As mentioned in the testimony and in their appeal exhibit, there's some testimony regarding the CCNRs and those easement validations and so on and so forth. That's really not before us today, and I just wanted to make that clear before we close the public record.

Thank you. Can I ask you a follow-up question about that, or no?

Sure.

If, well, is the city or the decision that we make at all affected by this open lawsuit? Like, do, if, like... depending on what the answer of it is, does that mean that this would have to come back to us in any way, shape, or form?

No, it doesn't affect our look at the review criteria and any conditions that we might apply.

Like if we approve something that's not allowable in CCNRs, that doesn't matter, right? Okay.

It doesn't matter. It doesn't affect our decision here tonight. Okay. I wouldn't opine on their sort of private cause of action, but that's a totally separate matter.

Okay, thanks.

All right. And I will close the public hearing. And we have some questions for Mr. Harrington to walk us through.

All right, so again, as the process goes, the reason why I know it was mentioned that the SUP approval comes first because everything sort of flows from that. All of the conditions under the SUP are incorporated in the PUD, which then allow the subdivision to be approved. You can't approve a subdivision that doesn't meet the SUP and the PUD. So that's why it was done in that order, and that's why we're here tonight on the SUP, because that is really the top end of that funnel, if you will. All right, so the first question in review and approval criteria, whether the implementation of the special use would or would not conform to the purposes of the applicable zoning district.

And to be clear, the applicable zoning district is the one that they're asking for, not the one that exists.

It is the one that exists. So it is the applicable zoning district. I believe the record was R1. So it's whether or not this is an allowable special use in the R1. This is not a zoning matter. Gotcha. There's no zone change.

I see. Well, I mean.

I think to further clarify, I think the use, again, is under our cottage homes code. And so it's whether or not cottage homes are an allowable special use in the R1 subdivision.

Are you allowed to ask for cottage homes under special use if your zone is R1? That's the question. And I think the answer is yes, right?

The answer is yes.

Yes. I mean, in the nature of it, no, it's not allowable except for the special use permit, right? So it wasn't envisioned originally, but the special use permit would permit it.

The further evidence by the future land use map too, which is in the case of this area is low density and low density is legally defined. by Post Falls zoning code as being eight units or less per acre, and this conforms with that. So between the special use permit language in the zoning code itself and the future land use map defining low density as eight units or fewer per acre, then it does conform.

I would say yes but, and I'll pause just to say that this is one of those votes that I know I'm gonna hate no matter what I decide because there's great arguments on both sides and either way I feel like I'm gonna be wrong. But one of the things that the Milltown North focus area says is that it's preserving the character of the existing neighborhoods. and yet it also says to encourage the creative methodologies to enhance neighborhood areas and spur reinvestment. So we have sort of competing goals and I hope that whatever decision comes out tonight that people understand that we're trying to do the best and there are competing goals here that are a challenge. but one of them is to preserve the character of the existing neighborhood. The other is to seek creative methodologies to enhance the neighborhood areas and spur reinvestment.

All right, all right. The second review criteria, whether the proposed use constitutes an allowable special use established by this chapter for the zoning district involved and complies with all other applicable laws, ordinances, and regulations of the city and state.

I would say it does for the same reasons I noted before. One thing I'd like to bring up, as Mayor Westland said before this hearing started, regardless of what our feelings may be on it, it's what the code is. And one tricky thing about municipal government is part of the challenge is to provide predictability to not only existing homeowners, but also to potential new homeowners, developers, et cetera. So everything that municipal code and master plans and comprehensive plans and so forth, it's usually all on a 20 year out basis. We're in the middle of a revision, which happens every five years or so, of master plans, the comprehensive plan. And if we don't hear about any concerns at that time, then you could fast forward 10 years and a developer has the same right to some level of certainty as anybody else. So the master plan now says that you you know, this type of development is allowable and it's conforming. Um, so we have to try to find a way. I don't have to find a way there has to be something in the current comprehensive plan, the current zoning codes, et cetera, that says, no, they cannot do this. Um, and I'm not seeing anything. I'm not aware of anything in our current codes in the comprehensive plan. That's that would say that this does not conform.

This is not yet where we're looking at the goals of the comprehensive plan, right? This is just if it's legally allowable.

Yes.

I would say that without a doubt it's legally allowable.

I wonder if the R2 zone definition, which is what cottage homes are, does give us guidance on that. There's a sentence in here that says... Primarily applied in areas suitable for residential development where such residentially designed areas are readily serviced by collector and arterial streets suitable for higher levels of traffic. And I think that's where I keep getting caught on this is because there were, Councilor Luca, to your point, a lot of really great concerns and also points made on both sides of this that have nothing to do with what we're allowed to make a decision about. We're actually not really allowed to make a decision about attainable housing, regardless of you want young people or old people or permanent people or renters to live there. That's not a thing that we can, We also can't really specifically look at what a CCNR says or doesn't say, sadly, much to our chagrin in many other hearings that we're in. We can only look at these individual things. And I agree with you, Councilor Malloy, we have to be diligent about our comprehensive plan, and I think for the most part, the developer has done an amazing job of trying to fit something into this space, but the more that I look at the area and I zoom out, I don't think that it meets, I don't think that it meets the comprehensive plan specifically in the sense that it is not on a street of higher, it is not on a street of higher classification and it is not near a collector or an arterial, but it is a higher density than the surrounding uses. I don't know that I can overcome that.

Just to clarify. So it kind of leads us back to the first criteria. So we will get to goals and policies of the comprehensive plan. That's the fourth criteria. But kind of going back to the first criteria, it's... whether or not this special use conforms to the purpose statement for the R1 zone because it is zoned R1 and so you're really applying whether or not this use falls under the R1 zone is intended for single-family homes on one lot minimum size or larger and to permit other accessory uses that are associated and compatible with residential uses. Lot area and building bulk and placement requirements shall agree with the values and the bulk and regulation placement regulations which is further covered by the PUD later on. But that's really the purpose statement I think we're comparing it to and I think that's what Councillor Maloy was alluding to.

And I would just caution against referring to R2 because it looks similar to an R2 form, but this is just the R1 zone that we're considering and it's a special use permit within the R1 zone. The cottage home standard is a building standard that can apply to multiple zones. So it's not really R2. We're still dealing with just an R1 zone with a use in the zone. So when you're reading things.

Just don't read them, is that?

Read them from the R1 section, not the R2 section.

I just, I don't see that this road is compatible with the use that's being requested, which is something that we talk about in R1 as well as R2. We can go back to our conversation about other public hearings, specifically the one off of Montgomery. You're going to tell me to be quiet, aren't you? No, okay.

No, I was going to say, I think we can kind of cover this discussion a little bit in the next criteria, because... That's where we're talking about sort of compatible land uses in the vicinity and stuff like that. So that might be a better area to dive into this.

You just let me know when I'm allowed to say something and then I'll be doing my best.

Before we move on though, the definition of that accessory use, is there a definition of that? Because is that like sheds and outbuildings and things like that that are accessory use for an R1 single family detached home?

Yes it is a defined term. It's really I think the consideration before on the purpose statement is sort of the residential use versus a resident a residential use. I think that's what the compatibility question is.

But it can't mean any residential use right because then it would be R3 would be allowed or whatever and an R1 zone so that accessory use is It's compatible with a single family 6,500 or greater square foot lot home, right?

Yes, it's whether or not this particular proposed use of cottage homes would be compatible with the residential uses of the R1 zone.

And is the answer yes if it is a accessory use? Like is a cottage home an accessory use? That's what I'm not. It gets more layered than that.

It's not. I just pulled it up. An accessory use is really like you're outbuilding a lot. Those are accessory uses. That's what I was getting at. That second focus on the accessory uses is really not relevant. So going back to what Field was saying, does it meet with that first section or that first sentence of the purpose statement dealing with a residential use in a residential area of a defined size? That's the piece to focus in on. The accessory is really dealing if they have a shop or a shed, something else. Right.

The layers of this, you've got the base R1, which is, one residence on one lot of a minimum size, the base R1 minimum size is 6,500 feet or larger. However, R1 also allows for PUD overlays. PUD overlays allow for smaller lot sizes still in R1, one residence per minimum lot, but in exchange for shared open space, then those lot sizes can be smaller as to be determined by the authorities who are looking at a P&Z us, whatever. And then on top of that, it's also allowable for special use permits. So all of those things are allowable in R1 within various parameters. So in this case, we've got R1, which allows a PUD. We've got a PUD, which allows smaller lots than 6,500 with open space. This has all that. So I don't see anything that doesn't conform with the city code as it is currently laid out.

These first two questions are very mechanical. There's not a lot of room for discussion on them. The next two are more. Discussion oriented.

Did you say the special use houses everything, though, first? The special use and then our PUDs after that?

Yes, so the request for the special use is whether or not we are going to allow cottage homes. Cottage homes is the use that is proposed. And so the first implementation of cottage homes conforms to the purposes in the R1 zoning district. And then I think yes, the second one is a mechanical answer.

I think we're ready for the third one then. We can talk about this a little more.

All right. Three, whether the proposed use will or will not be compatible with the health, safety, and welfare of the public or with the land uses in the vicinity of the proposal.

No, someone else can go first.

So I think for me on this, in this particular case, the, the wording that carries most weight is compatibility. And so defining what that means, I think is what our code is all about. So when we talk about the difference between what are one low density may look like in historic neighborhoods in post falls, I happen to live in one as well. compared to what the definition of low density is in R1. I think especially in this case, those are two different perceptions of what that means. We've even seen tonight in some of the public comments of saying this is a high density development. I can see by comparison that it would seem like a higher density development compared to the surrounding area, but by definition it isn't. Many of the points that were made were talking about compatibility with the surrounding area. Does it fit here? I think from where I sit, while I completely can relate to those in that neighborhood that would say this isn't compatible, unfortunately, as we've mentioned, we are kind of constrained to the consistency of what the code allows. And I think this proposal does pretty clearly demonstrate that it is allowed here, otherwise we really wouldn't even be considering it. I can relate to the heartburn that many of you are feeling. Like I mentioned, I live in kind of central Post Falls, built out in the mid to late 60s. It's an R1 zone. My lot is about a third of an acre, and so it is bigger, much bigger than the minimum allowed you know, eight units per acre that we can allow today. And so to see a development like that with that minimum lot size allowed in R1 built next to my neighborhood, I would say that is not even close to what my neighborhood feels like today. So I can relate to you in how you're feeling about this, I think. However, I think it is important from a consistency standpoint, from a protection of private property rights standpoint, for us to make determinations based on what the code says and what we've already laid out in that structure. So just kind of a preamble before we get into the discussion about compatibility. That's where I feel like the biggest conflict

is in the perception of what low density is and what is and isn't allowed in r1 and this criteria specifically is actually more specific it's not even necessarily compatible with the surrounding uses it's with the health safety and welfare of the public or the land uses within the vicinity and a threat to the health safety and welfare has to be demonstrable in which cases it would be kind of tight 17 units it would be hard to make the argument that it creates a demonstrable it's not compatible with health safety and welfare if the proposal was to build a fireworks factory on this lot then yeah you've got explosives next to a school and and homes with children and then yeah that's that's a demonstrably uh not compatible with the health safety and welfare in terms of the the added traffic that might be involved you know there's far more dense developments in every city including this one that don't seem to have any adverse impact on the health safety and welfare of the residents around it So this is, again, has specific legal implications. Is there something we can say that, hey, this is definitely going to pose a very high risk to health, safety, and welfare of the people around it? And I don't think we can make that argument.

I think conversely we can't make the argument that there is no impact on health, safety and welfare. Every car trip creates some risk. The question and I think what you were getting at is does it rise to the level of being incompatible I don't think it does rise to the level of being incompatible, but the residents who spoke in opposition are exactly right that it does increase the risk. We can't be Pollyanna about that and that every car trip, every delivery truck that comes through there will increase the risk by some degree. but as you said we have neighborhoods that have a lot more traffic on them that don't have inherent incompatibility issues so definitely sympathetic to the traffic concerns as I think it was the first one to raise them other than those who spoke at the PNZ meeting but we are constrained to some degree by this

I'm just going to actually just opine a little bit and agree that largely this council, if I can say that, you can withdraw your name from that part of the statement if you want, but is supportive of uh this type of build and has been thrilled to let some of these builds go forward and but i also and i i love the idea of ccnrs preventing the homes being rented because that's another loophole that ultimately torpedoes these kinds of developments but it's just not going to be fun to live in the neighborhood as the residents have come to know it and experience it and Unfortunately, the policy and code, the way that it's written, we have to abide by it. Nathan said we have to be consistent in applying it and fair in applying it. So just because we think it's less than ideal doesn't mean that it's not legal or allowable. And unfortunately, I think you guys are right in that. Again, no hate on cottage homes or ARC or anything like that. It's just the second I saw this report come through and I saw the little wedged piece of property, I was like, man, I wish there was another street over there. But anyway.

No, what do you agree with? Do you agree with the goal that the comprehensive plan allows it or doesn't allow it?

No, I think it allows it.

All right. I think the comprehensive plan allows a lot of things, depending on which page you're looking at and how you look at it and what you want to look at. I actually really think, I mean, the single direction roofs are not my favorite. So if one person says they're beautiful, I think I'm allowed to say that I don't think that they're beautiful, but I like the idea of the development. I appreciate. open space, whatever's been done with the arc, I don't think the arc is a comparable development and I don't think it's what we're considering here. So that only helps muddy the waters for all of the people watching this as well as us when we have to speak to all of these points when we bring in things that we can't actually consider. Before I talk about something that's not the prompt on the screen, Miss Frank, Where did you go? Oh, well, turkeys, okay. I wanted to apologize to her for any sense of impropriety from anyone that represents the city in any capacity as that is something that, whether it be true or not true, it is 100% about perception and it is our job to make sure that we don't give any perception of favoritism in any way and that it is made clear that our decisions are made literally while you're watching that we don't come in with any ideas either for or against and that we listen to each person that has something to say in support of or against it's not particularly helpful to have just a bunch of names that say that they are in support or against something and then don't give us anything to consider so I might point that out to some people in the room But, yeah, darn, so she left. So I was really bummed to hear that in her testimony that doesn't sit well with me. So we're not allowed to consider traffic in this one like we are in annexation and zoning where we look at streets and subdivision, platting, none of that, that, like, It is just, if this is an R1 street, which it clearly is because R1 people live on it.

If you can point to evidence in the record that would show that there is a... health, safety, welfare issue with traffic, that would be something you could point to. But the traditional sort of subdivision requirements as far as meeting city standards and that sort of thing for our roads and those type of items are sort of covered at the bottom end of the funnel.

Could I be any more convincing that this decision is made literally in real time? I don't like. So the logic goes something like this, right? It's zoned R1. The comprehensive plan says that you can ask for cottage homes. Cottage homes can be allowed in R1 if you ask for a special use permit, which they're doing. So while we might think that cottage homes are R2, You can have them in R1 and then you only have to follow all of the rules of cottage homes that you think are R2, but the R1 standards to all of the infrastructure apply. Well, we know that all of the infrastructure in this area is R1 because that's what already exists there. But through this kind of like logic train and the comprehensive plan, you can all of the sudden buy yourselves cottage homes at cottage home size regulations for lots and buildings and density. Did I get that correct?

Aside from it's not the comprehensive plan, it's city code. So our city code is what we have the cottage home standards, we have our land use table and our purpose statements for our zoning districts.

But it's the comprehensive plan that allows you to ask for cottage homes in R1?

That's our city code, our cottage home performance standards, residential standards, is where that is located.

So additional regulations?

Yeah. Yeah, so it is a ask, and that's why it's a special use permit. It's something you have to come back for to ask for in the R1.

My point is more that there's a clear path that involves no decision-making from city council. essentially, like no, not that it's not thoughtful, but it's not like imaginative thought. It is just yes or no, yes or no, yes or no, decision tree all the way down.

Yes, but city council adopts the code. Right, yeah, I get that part. So you set the standards, you set what the code says, so you're implementing what council has adopted.

A council.

I think you're exactly right. Is it is a, it's basically a checkbox.

Yeah.

Like, does this meet the criteria, which is why it's delegated to the planning and zoning that it isn't a decision that would normally come to us. So I do think it's quite mechanical in most applications of this criteria specifically because it is delegated to the planning and zoning. If it was more complex or if we had the ability to have a more nuanced discussion about it, then it would immediately come to us is how I would say that.

Yeah, and I think you're right. I think in something for tonight's purpose where there are a lot of people looking at us with a lot of comments and feelings about it coming from a lot of areas, while it seems simple for points that are written in the language of people that read this all of the time. It is by, I don't think by any means clear how we come to a decision and how we are guided, not guided, but, and hands tied is also kind of an aggressive term, but how we go through this flow chart. There's really, even with an annexation, we're allowed to decide if it's in the best interest of the city, which we're not really given this here. this criteria would be so hard to defend and is so hard to be specific about. I think in a way that even though I like to be slightly on the edge with these things, you know, there's no way to really consider it I mean we've been given nothing in terms of public comment or obviously any of the proposals that would uphold there being health safety and welfare of the public with this well it's really a question of degree like I said yes it it interferes with the health safety and welfare of the public but is it to a point of incompatibility and I think therein lies our judgment call

Is it defensible to say yes or is it defensible to say no? And I don't think it's as mechanical as this process plays out. Note P and Z was a 4-2 split decision, which I don't think I've seen one yet that wasn't unanimous so far in my tenure. So even they were not convinced completely. And we still have some other goals of the comprehensive plan to discuss, specifically on this one. And I think it meets some of them and it doesn't meet others. So really we, I don't want to give anybody the sense that the decision that's going to be rendered tonight is inevitable. Because it isn't, and I'm still not sure which way I would go. Because like I said, I don't like either decision. But I have to make one.

So question about R2 zoning. I can't remember off the top of my head. How many lots per acre is allowed in R2?

Oh, you're looking at me like I have answers.

Well, you're the R2 girl right now.

Sir, sir, I put that paper away. I was told it doesn't say on this paper. It's 2,400 square feet per lot. Which is about, well, if you're talking about cottage homes, it's the same. Like whether you're R2 or R1, because they want cottage homes.

No, I mean the lot size.

Well, it depends on what you want to build. You can build 4,000 square foot single family homes in R2. You can build 2,400 square foot cottage homes in R2. You can build a duplex. You can build a twin home.

None of that's particularly relevant to what's in front of us today, though. Yeah.

But to our discussion earlier, what we were just talking about is it does seem like you go through this process and it's a game of chutes and ladders and all of the chutes lead to higher density.

And I will, maybe I can clarify my confusion. Then a principal use of R2 is cottage homes. So that's, when you're talking cottage homes, the principal use is R2, or it's a principal use of R2, so I just went to the R2 standards. Seems the most reasonable, so.

Should we go to the fourth question?

All right. Whether the proposed use will or will not comply with the goals and policies found within the comprehensive plan.

I think there were a lot of goals that it does. Certainly, I will say that to Scott that when I saw this, I was like, if I ever need an engineer, I probably will call because because the use of space in there was really remarkable. Whether it's compatible with this neighborhood is a different question we'll have to answer. And it's compatible with the goals. But it's certainly in our goals to create different types of housing, availability of different types of housing, provide workforce housing, all of those things. It helps. I don't know because, as Councillor Steglander said, the discussion of the ARC kind of muddies it a little because I don't think there's any covenants or restrictions here about reselling or any of that like Miracle in Britain had or I believe the ARC has. I'm not as familiar with that. It was pre-me. So I don't know if there's any restriction on an investor coming in and buying them and renting them out or turning it into an Airbnb court or whatever. But in terms of this question, one of the goals that I think it does not meet is goal three, which is to maintain and improve Post Falls' small town scale, charm, and aesthetic beauty. It meets a lot of other ones, but it kind of blows up the small town scale of this neighborhood by doubling the amount of units in it, doubling the amount of traffic in it. Certainly if that other road that Mr. Anderson had talked about, if there was another way in and out, then I think it'd be a really easy decision for me to say yes. But coming through this neighborhood, I don't think it's consistent with goal three.

I would have to take the opposite pill on that one. Again, just sticking strictly by the codes and the comprehensive plan and how it's written out, if cottage homes... If a development of 17 cottage homes doesn't maintain the small town feel of the city, then three-story apartment buildings sure as heck don't. And those are permitted in the comprehensive plan and apparently meet that goal in policy. So if we're going by the strict letter of the law, which this isn't an annexation hearing, we have a lot more leeway. And that was because when we're deciding an annexation, that property we're talking about is currently under the jurisdiction of the county. And we're deciding whether we want to be in the jurisdiction of the city or not. This type of hearing is already in the jurisdiction of the city, so we have to focus on what are our laws as to whether we can accept or reject. So that's why this, it really is, as Councilor Ziegler said, more mechanical than, say, an annexation hearing. So in terms of the goal policies, the comprehensive plan, if the plan contemplates that apartment buildings can still be conducive to a small town field, then it must be permitted that cottage homes would meet that criteria.

Yes, but in their place. So we don't put apartment homes in R1. And this is R1. So that's why I say that I don't think, at least for this neighborhood, it takes it from a small town scale to a midtown level of density in an R1 single family neighborhood. goal seven says that we want different types of land use and the staff report said that that it was kind of a slam dunk consistent with that because it's a different type but the homes that are there are a type and now we're going to change the types in the neighborhood if we were to approve this so by definition what type are they Well, they're a higher density. I mean, we call them cottage homes. They're basically a deconstructed apartment that you put and they don't touch each other, right, because they're small.

They're single-family residential homes.

Yes, but I mean, you can, I don't think we want to, go down too far into that because I could say that there's one family in an apartment too. But is it, in practicality, in practicality, which I think Councilor Stiglitter was getting to, the practical use is that it is a higher density use than the houses that are there now, right?

I think it's that impulse that makes me want to put it next to higher roadway classifications is because it seems like a higher Density use, huh?

How close does it need to be? Because Mullen's right there.

I mean, like with direct access, not down three residential streets to get there.

But again, by the letter of the code.

I wasn't done yet.

You tell them.

Good night. No more raspberry bars. That's all I have.

Oh, man.

That is like my gut impulse. And I think that that's most people's too when they look at it is this is a higher density use than what you would normally see there. But technically speaking, it's not. It is still allowable in R1 and thus does not have to be directly connected. to a higher use roadway, and to the point about goals and policies, and I'll connect the two for you, about the small town charm and keeping the original neighborhoods, a number of duplexes, and maybe they're technically twin homes, you would only know that if you were in the planning division, have actually been approved and built in this designated area of the city, right, like in the middle city. And they don't meet that goal either, but we've allowed them and thus there's not that consistency. And so while I tend to agree again, because I like maybe a cottage home that looks like a cottage, like in England with like roses and tea, um, you know, it's not my envision of what like a small town charm or beauty would look like, but we've allowed these types of developments in these higher uses in the same area, in the city. and thus not applying that goal and policy consistently. And so, yeah, I think that while I would like it to be enough, I don't think that it is in this case. So, is that okay? Yeah. You can say whatever you want.

Yeah, I mean, it's clear, as I said, like as I'm marveling at the engineering of it, so that we didn't start out with how aesthetically beautiful can we make this piece of ground. We started with, the economics of it and creating, and I'm not casting any negative on the motive of that. I think it's a good motive. I'm just saying that from the purpose of goal three, We didn't start with trying to create a park. We started with trying to make money on how many pieces of property we could get in there and how many families we could serve with homes and those were all noble goals. But they're not goal three.

Do we have any goals that we want to say that it does support? We said diversity of housing. It doesn't really help transportation because it's a private road, right?

There could be an outside argument made that it actually does allow another emergency exit.

Okay. Maybe impact fees collected from this would help fund the rails to trails initiative.

It seems to me that Most, if not all of the goals that we have in the comprehensive plan are met by this. Some are very clear that yes, you can say yes, that's 100% right. But again, I guess my fallback position is what I mentioned earlier is the compatibility part. We're talking about density differences between these historic neighborhoods, and I'll go back to even my personal experience living in Central Post Falls. The density of that area, R1 is the same as the density of R1 in like Fieldstone that lived there too. Completely different feel. Like they feel very close together, but they're still R1. And so I think we have to be very careful about blurring the lines of what the definition of these densities are based on what our preferences or what we think compatibility is. And I think it goes back to the consistency that we need to demonstrate in enforcing the code.

All right. I think we've gone through the questions. Is there anything else you feel you need from us on those?

No.

All right, so at this point, we've had, I think, a really great discussion, and we have property rights to consider, and we have input to consider, and city ordinances, and at this point, they could be approved or denied or approved with conditions, and I'd entertain a motion.

Oh, we didn't even talk about conditions, if we want them or not. Does anybody, because aren't there the set list of them?

There is a list of conditions in the... Sorry, I'm losing my microphone. There is a list of conditions, so that, yeah, the special use permit would be the, you're approving at the conditions, or you're going through those conditions, however you want to form that.

Since this is a de novo hearing, do we have to redo any conditions that Planning and Zoning had put on there, or do they stay?

so again you can you can adopt them as as proposed as the planning condition as the planning and zoning condition some because the planning and zoning decision was sort of a combination of the special use permit the PUD and the subdivision some of those conditions are sort of our general subdivision conditions some of them are sort of PUD conditions some of them are probably more germane to the special use permit in sort of my estimation the special use conditions are sort of a I'm sorry for a through C six 9 and 14 are sort of more germane to special use items because they're dealing with the cottage homes the emergency access and the driveways the rest are sort of PUD density and our standard subdivision conditions can you tell me which attack which

attachment that is?

So it is in the reason decision page 69 of the of the staff report.

Yeah, mine wasn't.

Mine froze, so, okay. I just, I don't have anything particular to point out or argue about. I just wanted to make sure that that wasn't something that we needed to talk about or that anyone on council wanted to review or look at before, if we're gonna be technically approving it, it seems like we should open it.

Approving it as listed in the packet would probably be good language in the motion.

So is the motion to approve or deny the special use permit, or is it to approve or deny the appeal?

It's to approve or deny the special use permit. So this is just a redo of the special use permit hearing.

I'll float a motion. We'll see how it goes. I would move to approve the special use permit as presented in the packet.

second motion in a second I'm sorry just amend them as conditioned in the packet yes okay is it as presented in the packet but yeah that's fine so we have a motion on the floor further discussion well I'd like to ask is anybody that's done this more than me have any ideas

how we might have conditions that might make it more palatable. Certainly, I hate to see the neighborhood torn apart like this, going at each other with attorneys and all of that. I wonder if there's an amicable solution that's within our purview and some of these conditions that might make it easier for me to vote yes on it. Because so far, I'm really torn on it. When you think of ones that you've done in the past, like Councilor Mulloy, you've been here a long time. Do you see any way that this should be amended through conditions or anything? CHRIS RODGERS.

I've never, as long as I've been on the council, I've never had an appeal of a special use permit before. So this is a first for me also. So I thought the adding of the extra parking spaces, when I first saw this, you know me, I'm the parking Nazi, so I was like, where are people gonna park? So the additional spaces I thought was a good condition. The work done for the emergency egress is a good thing. There's some other thoughts too that I've been afraid to say anything, because I'd probably get over my skis, There's state law factors to take into account here too. There's some new state laws that have been passed that pretty much make this whole conversation moot in a matter of months. So my thought.

I was wondering about that too, but I think it only applies to lots over four acres.

Is it over four? That's correct, yeah. Okay, so I guess it doesn't. I was thinking also the ADU law, so. But this will come up in very similar circumstances in other places that are four acres.

Yeah, for sure, for sure.

And in any... in any lot in any city in Idaho now. If somebody buys a lot in the neighborhood and wants to construct an ADU, you can do it. So the population of every neighborhood could double by right by state law at any point too. So I think the conditions that are set now are probably more ideal than having kind of a crapshoot going forward with what state law is going to allow.

I do hate to ask a question, and I tried to be very specific about the de novo part of this, so I did not read through like planning and zoning stuff. But this says that it's a 4% increase above base density, and we just spent an hour talking about how this meets R1 density. Can that be explained to me?

So yeah, that's the base density, not counting a PUD.

but most of our discussion was about how it meets the r1 density anyway right of less than eight lots per acre that's that's the low density designation in the comprehensive plan which is different than r1 density well we talked about how it's low density on the map and we agreed with that that it's not designated as medium density on the map it's designated as low density

Yeah, so the comprehensive plan takes into account things such as PUDs and special use permits and so forth. So the code for R1 is different than what is designated on the comprehensive plan map because it has to take the base density of R1, which is 6,500 square foot lots, but also it could be a PUD. There could be a special use permit. So the comprehensive map says, okay, no more than eight per acre.

On low density.

Correct. But the low density isn't a zone.

It's a wish list.

6.72.

It's a more general designation, I guess.

This says it's 4% over base, which is within the 10% PUD density increase. That's part of the PUD.

Right, but we're not talking about PUDs. We're talking about special use permits. You don't get a PUD unless you get the special use permit. So the PUD part doesn't matter until we decide on this. OK, so it doesn't meet R1 densities. It meets low densities, then. I want to be clear about that distinction, because then I may have misspoke, saying that it met R1 density, but it meets low density. Right?

I think that's fair. OK.

So we've got a motion and a second. Is there any further discussion, or should we go to the vote? Sorry. All right, seeing none, roll call please.

Maloy?

Aye.

Ziegler?

Aye.

Luca?

No.

Stiglieder? Aye. Plew?

Aye. Motion passes, thank you. Thank you everyone for your comments. I hope you enjoyed a very detailed discussion. This was really excellent. I love when we can get all of this reasoning behind this and I actually really appreciate that everybody can see the decision-making process. I think this was a really great discussion.

I think we should give kudos to Jack, who sat there quietly, didn't make a single face, and just watched it all go down.

Thank you. Do you want one? All right, let's take a five-minute recess.

Ready?

Call the meeting back to order.

We are up to unfinished business. Item A is Westwood Water Distribution Replacement Project Phase 2 Design Services Agreement.

Good evening Mr. Mayor and members of Council. I had all the jokes prepared but I will keep it brief. Tonight I'm presenting a design services agreement with Century West Engineering for phase two of our Westwood water distribution project. A bit of background, so per our 2018 water system master plan, we try to, or it was recommended that we replace 1% of our system yearly, so after 100 years, you replace the full system, 100 year design life. Our water division maintains a pipeline replacement fund for this, and area selection for this project, as it's one of our first due to age, was based off the age of the infrastructure, condition, and field investigations. The area specifically, I believe some of you are pretty familiar with the area. So Pine Villa subdivision, east of Ponderosa Elementary School. So if you are familiar looking at the map, Ponderosa Elementary School is in the bottom left hand corner. The area that is highlighted specifically is phase two. Phase one is currently under construction. That's the red lines that aren't highlighted. For phase two, we would be replacing approximately 4,500 feet of water main, and then with that would be the services and meters for all the residents affected. Phase one's currently in construction, estimated completion late September of this year, and a potential phase two start in spring of 2027. Here's a bit of a better map, a little more zoomed in, so council can see the specific streets that we are working on. First Ave, Maplewood Avenue, Ridgewood Drive, and Ross Point Road. Did want to touch, so very early in design of the overall Westwood project, this turned into a phased project. So with the phased approach there, there was a lot of preliminary concepts developed by our engineer. Proceeding with phase two design with the same engineer, we are retaining quite a bit of value of the design completed to date. which will kind of explain the number that you see on the screen. It's a little less than we typically have seen for our design consultants. The total asked tonight with the requested contingency is a total of $70,000, or $70,180. This is funded through the water distribution design budget. And a future construction management services contract and construction contract would be presented to council at a further date. This is fun stuff, so some construction pictures. You can just kind of see some of the stages of installing a water main. So they're on the left, they're installing the main. Intentionally chose this picture because there was an unmarked service there that they hit. It's the fun stuff that contractors get to deal with. In the middle picture, I think they're doing some locate wire and that picture on the right, they're doing some compaction testing to make sure we have densities prior to paving. Timeline for next steps, we're looking to complete design sometime January 2027, bidding very late winter into early spring of 27 with construction in the spring of 27. Questions? These pictures are two meter pits, so this is where, like if you go out front in your meter, that's that.

That's what it looks like?

These ones, yeah. Oh. Yeah.

Are these, is it just two phases or is there a third phase to this project?

For this neighborhood, just the two phases for this project, yes. I say my wife's gonna hate me if I vote for this, but.

How is phase one going as far as the budget?

Well, budget and timeline phase one is going well, despite people who may walk through the neighborhood. Phase one and budget is going well, yes it is.

Has there been failure on these or is this just preventative?

I don't want to speak for the water division specifically. I know that in part of the selection of this neighborhood, there were just in past years more issues where our water division had to come out to this neighborhood more frequently than other neighborhoods, which is a big reason we selected this neighborhood as one of the first projects. But other than that, I don't want to speak too much on that. That's fine.

The materials were age.

It is an age-based project, though. Yeah.

I was made in the 70s, too. I know.

Just need replacement parts. That's all.

It's all good. I move to approve the Westwood Water Distribution Replacement Project Phase 2 Design Services Agreement.

Second. Motion and a second. Further discussion? Roll call, please.

Ziegler.

Aye.

Mosby? Aye. Luca? Aye. Stiglieder? Aye. Plew?

Aye.

Molloy?

Aye. Motion passes. New business, item A, personnel policy compassionate separation.

And I did want to address a couple questions we received ahead of time before we dive into the PowerPoint. The first one was why was there information about the catastrophic account, the CAT documents, or CAT also included in the documents? That was the original 2022 resolution that was adopted. So that resolution was adding this provision as well as making some other changes. That was just a reference only. This is what it looked like when it was adopted in 2022. The next question was, what was the $10,000 number based on? At the time, it was just what we thought was a reasonable number to provide sort of for health care for that sort of end-of-life coverage. And then... third what is the requirement for retiring vest retirement vesting for city employees it is five years to to vest for retirement per se so i'll let janet take it away now all right good evening mayor council janet best hr director we are seeking council approval to add the compassionate

separation policy back into the personnel policy. As Field says it was adopted in 22. With our restructure of the personnel policy it was inadvertently left out. It ensures consistency and compassion amongst all of our employees. Right now we have no current policy for a terminal medical situation for our employees. Went over that again. The resolution was 2207 adopted in 22. Eligibility requirements, regular full-time employees, 12 consecutive months of service. They do require a terminal medical condition with the doctor provider certification certification required. They would send in a written request and separation date to myself. I would review the eligibility based on the criteria just on the slide before. And the employee can appeal to the city administrator if needed. And we can also, the city can also initiate that separation if they're on an FMLA after their leave is over. We can also go to them and initiate this. As Field said, it was 10,000. We're looking at 11,000 with possible COLA adjustments in the future. This is not a cash severance. This would go into their VEBA and it would support their future eligible medical requests. We do expect this, hope. to use this infrequently with our employees. It would be under the annual budget review and it would be limited to the funding provided. It'd be compassionate, consistent, there's clear eligibility standards for the employees and there'd be fiscal oversight. Any questions?

Just one. Is there any, I don't know. There's an expectation and a hope that we won't have to use this very often since it was adopted in 22. Have we used it?

We've used it twice.

makes it an easier decision for sure. It was already easy for me, but certainly to hear that two of our employees have benefited from this is, that's good. Can you remind me, please, Janet, what other benefits are available that would cover, like if we separate an employee or something, the disability part or something like that, are those voluntary?

Yes, they are. We do have short-term and long-term disability through Mutual of Omaha, but it is on a voluntary basis. Thank you.

I'm going to sound like the horrible person. Um, I feel like this is a very generous, um, and it's not something that you see. I don't do any of your employers have this, no employer that I've ever had has this as a benefit. And so I do think that it's, um, it's a very nice benefit that the city does. And I, having lived through this exact scenario and helping a loved one sign their resignation letter mere days before their death, um, I understand the the difficulty of the situation for all parties involved. I do wonder though, from the administrative side of taxpayer dollars, if it is a overwhelmingly generous benefit for 12 months of employment. And I think maybe the five year employment would make more sense. That shows, I mean, that's when you get, we don't even give someone retirement until they've worked at the city for five years. And so if we're talking about consistency and like that, that makes me more comfortable with the situation. And then also the idea of it being adjusted for COLA, if it's not actually based on like, you know, I don't know, some number of like, this is the average cost of like funeral services. If we're not looking to pay for something specific, then I think leaving it at a set mark until staff comes and tells us that it really isn't of benefit to the people that are using it because it is such a low number would make more sense than setting it up to just constantly increase without it kind of coming back through council. But I mean, those aren't necessarily deal breakers for me, but those are, my, I'm sure, unpopular thoughts about this. I think so.

I understood any increases have to be voted upon, correct? Correct. Yeah, so there is that. It's not an automatic COLA adjustment. It does come before us.

Would it just be wrapped in with all of the other COLA increases that we do, or would we revote on this every year?

It would probably be included in the budget presentation. But we'd call it out.

I'd like it to just be stopped at 10,000 until we reevaluate it. I don't know, but that's just me. I mean, even short-term disability and stuff like that is usually just a set amount by month or whatever it is. It doesn't go up every year. I don't know. Those are my thoughts. What say you?

I'm agreeing with you, although... I don't like, I don't mind agreeing with you, but I don't like agreeing on this point. I feel like, yeah, it should be more than 12 months, but maybe there's a good reason to have 12 months, but three years sounds really reasonable. You've been with the city and you've been loyal enough. I don't know about five years, it's so long. Who works a job for five years?

Well, then you don't get your retirement.

Yeah, I was initially concerned that people with pre-existing conditions could find out about this. And I'm like, I don't know if you'd come get a job with Citi just to get $10,000 knowing that you were going to die. And if that's it, I just kind of figured that, you know what? How often is this going to come before us? I think the responsibility argument is good. I would like it to not automatically adjust. I think we should vote on it separately. But I did want to know, do we provide any cash severance in addition?

I haven't touched it.

If we were to separate somebody's employment because they had exhausted FMLA?

Yeah, we don't. It's on a case-by-case basis.

So we sometimes do, right?

I don't know that we have since I've been here I was gonna say no we don't typically have any kind of a cash basis that we'd be paying an employee okay there are times where we've paid out employees when they've separated for basically a waiver of claims against the city if there's issues like that but that's a separate it's not a severance type thing

I would say, kind of echoing what you were saying on actual experience with different families, I've probably in my career been disproportionately exposed to the dying experience and have for the most part not seen other employees or employers offer this kind of benefit, but for the or the ones that I have, it's a big lift, not only for them, but for their family. So if we are in a position, this is something that I would easily say yes for. I would love to be an employer that offers that kind of benefit to a grieving family. So this is an easy yes for me. I can understand the consideration length of employment, I think three years is probably fair. But to the kind of automatic increase for inflation, I would be 100% behind that too. Because dying is expensive. And every year we lose our buying power if that amount stays the same. So that's my two cents.

Do you have input on why 12 months was chosen as the length of time?

12 months is usually standard for the FMLA. They wouldn't qualify, and I'm not sure if that's why that was chosen or not.

I don't know if that was considered in 2022. I know that that's what the original period was, was a minimum of one year employment, but I don't know why that was chosen.

So there's nothing in particular that it's based on that's important that we keep it that way necessarily?

No, I think it was probably tied to the FMLA leave.

I would say that it was a relatively new hire. And it's a very difficult conversation to have with folks that, excuse me, my voice is cracking up because I'm losing my voice tonight apparently.

Sure.

It's really difficult to explain to someone this person can get it but you can't and that's, I mean in theory you have that risk with the folks under a year but we were intentionally trying to sweep into the rule everybody who would qualify under FMLA as well as we lived an experience where it was, we had an employee who was in that one year time frame and we wanted to make sure that we're trying to provide a compassionate way for people to gracefully exit the work environment as best we can at a reasonable cost with paying for a couple months of healthcare.

Well with that logic I would say it should be less than 12 months then because you don't qualify for FMLA. if you're an employee for less than 12 months, then you don't even get FMLA. So this would help subsidize that. It wouldn't make any sense to do it at the same time as FMLA because then you get it. And so then you have something. But if you did it after like three months, that would cover, right? Is that? I don't know.

Are you really advocating for that?

I'm just saying if that's the logic that we're using, then I think it actually is shorter. But that's all that.

But you don't really believe it. FMLA just provides job protected leave so but you can also get paid through if they approve your FMLA right only if you have PTO and cat available so once you've exhausted your your available paid time off you're you're basically on unpaid protected leave on FMLA so you have to qualify for disability to get the payment from the state I don't know I got paid FMLA You would be, yeah, you would have to have some other funding source. Yeah. We don't have state disability here.

Oh, that's the trick.

So for me, the time period, whether it's a year or three years, five years, I think that's the wrong thing to be looking at. It's in the name of the resolution. It's the compassionate separation benefit. That's the focus. Are we saying that a person has to be here for three years or five years in order to earn the compassion of the city as an employer? I don't think that's what we're saying. And I'm not saying that any of you are saying that either. My point though is 12 months, that doesn't give me any heartburn at all. If a person has shown that they're, I think under one year, I think there could be some risks that someone might just sign up for a job knowing that they're not going to do it very long. But if you have to just stick it out for a year, then you probably weren't expecting to die within a year. But if it's less than a year, I think that someone might sign up just to get a little extra money for their family before they die. And that, I think, is kind of gaming the system, so to speak. But I think for someone who signs up for employment, sticks it out for a year, they clearly weren't aware that they were gonna die when they signed up for their job. I'm speculating, but I'm guessing that that's the case. So at that point, I think it's reasonable tying it to FMLA. I think that's a fair assessment, but I don't think a person needs to display their loyalty for five years in order to earn my compassion. So I would support this as written.

I'd agree with you and say that the fiscal concerns are real but there's also we have to keep in mind that when when we separate somebody's employment there is a period of time where we're not paying that person while we're recruiting for that position and so there is still savings to the city depending on their salary and their benefits package or whatever what that number is and how so how long it takes to recruit but Usually that person has already exhausted all of their PTO so we're not giving them a PTO payout at separation and there will be a period of time as we're recruiting where that $10,000 is probably less than the savings that we would get while we recruit for a position if it's a management level or above. So I'm fine with the fiscal impact as well.

I would support it as written. I'm betting this is going to be the least abused policy in the history of policies. So that's, I hope so. Yeah.

Fine. We can do it, but I take issue with the logic that was given. It's either compassionate and we do it at employment, like the time that you sign on. Or we do have a concern of what time period is appropriate, and then we talk that out. But you can't have it both ways. You can't say that, well, 12 months, it's not really about your loyalty to the city. So I think 12 months is a good... portion and I think five years is too long either the time matters or it doesn't matter and if it doesn't matter we do it when you become an employee which if that's what we want to do I think that that's fine if it's really just about being a compassionate employer and that is the only thing that we want to signal right now then we should do it at time of employment but if we are looking at this as a benefit to our employees while balancing that with being fiscally responsible and looking at the types of policies that we put into place and how other then we have to decide on a time. So I know that you're about to make a motion and that's what I have to say about it, but I think it's nice that we decided to do it. I just take issue with what was said about the timeframes.

Are you proposing an amendment to it?

I proposed like four since we brought this topic up and I think it's just gonna be flown as written, which is,

fine but I mean if we're just about compassion then I say that we do it at time of employment another benefit of this too is that you know this it's a competitive environment out there at times of you know retaining retaining employees and recruiting employees and I think to have the reputation that Post Falls takes care of its employees is a good reputation to have and in these cases I think will inevitably be pretty high profile, particularly among the current employees, because you tend to notice when your co-worker is dying. So I think in terms of expressing that post falls, it's important for us to treat the employees well. I think this is an excellent policy for that. And with that, I also hear what Councilwoman Stiglitter is saying, so I would move to approve the personnel policy, compassionate separation, but amend it so that it takes effect upon employment.

Second. One question before we vote on this. We have a probationary period for employees, correct?

We do.

Should we consider that?

What is it, 90 days, six months?

Six months.

It's actually a year for, I believe it's a year probation and a six month review.

I'm gonna leave my motion the way it is. Okay.

A motion and a second, further discussion? Roll call please.

Mosby.

Of course had to start with me.

Come on, you sat out the hard one.

That's such a good point. Yeah.

Can I comment? Yeah. No. Which is it? You've both been here longer than me. You can comment. So I think compassionate... is the focus of what this is intended to accomplish, but you can have compassion with prudence. And I think if it's something where someone can sign on and then immediately this benefit vests, it can certainly be abused by someone who's already aware, may not have, I think that at least after whatever the applicable probationary period would be applicable. So for that reason only, I'm gonna vote nay as this motion is presented.

And does it only apply to full-time employees, full-time permanent?

There's an hour marker on the actual policy, isn't there? But I guess we would just do it at employment then.

If this motion fails, we can do a different motion on different time periods. So let's continue with the call. We have one nay.

Luca?

Aye.

Stiglitter? Aye. Plew?

Nay.

Malloy?

Aye.

Ziegler?

For the same reasons, I think Councillor Moseley makes a great point. That's a nay for me.

Well, my first tied vote, um, then, and now we'll, I will leave it as a nay. And so the motion fails and we can float a new motion.

I move to approve the personnel policy, compassionate separation as written.

Second motion is second for the discussion roll call, please.

Mosby.

Aye.

Luca.

Aye.

Stig leader. Aye. Plew.

Aye.

Maloy? Aye. And Ziegler?

Aye. Motion passes, thank you.

You don't get to have it all the ways.

All right, on to citizens' issues. This section of the agenda is reserved for citizens wishing to address the council regarding city-related issues that are not on the agenda. Is there anyone wishing to speak? Seeing none, move on to administrative staff reports, and we have a workshop to schedule.

Yeah, so we're trying to do the starter home subdivision code update. We're hoping to do it sometime late September, early October. There's a few dates that won't work, though, most of the end of September. So September 14th through the 22nd won't work, and the 24th through the 29th will. So that leaves September 23rd or September 30th through October 2nd, or we can look at the beginning of October. And I think, Joe, you said Wednesdays don't work well, right? Right. So September 23rd would not work. Or the 30th. Or the 30th.

Thank you.

So was the 24th an option? No.

No.

It was not. This is like a horrible board game.

So it could be October 1st, or we can go into the rest of October was completely wide open. So looking forward to October.

Oh, wait. How do Mondays feel for you, Joe?

They're fine. I'd prefer if it's not on a council week, but that can make it work. October 1st works for me. That would work for me.

I will second that.

Any objection to keeping it in the beginning of the week, Monday or Tuesday? I'm pretty flexible.

The 28th and the 29th don't work for staff, right? Correct. What time? Oh, it's going to be in the evening.

If you want to keep it on Monday, we could do the 5th.

Does this need to be a long workshop?

I like it on a Monday, not on a Thursday, but I can.

Is it like the other night where it was going to go a few hours? That's why we.

It's not like the end of the world.

After the last public hearing, I think so. Yeah. Oh, so you. We're going to go on a Monday, then I would vote for the 12th because we don't have a council meeting the next day.

Can we have it on a holiday?

But that's Columbus Day.

Oh, yeah.

Never mind.

Employees will be off.

Ooh.

Not anymore. I'm kidding. Double time for the employees.

What about a Friday? Can we do the second? No, a Friday. Oh, okay.

I move for Monday, October 26th.

Monday, October 26th.

Open up.

That's pretty late. The 10th.

Okay. Okay.

I mean, we could, but if we're asking them to make some changes. When were we in September available?

14th?

No, sorry, only the 25th. You're talking my language. Oh, yeah. No dates in September.

None in September. Wait a minute.

My profession, that is a secret time.

Absolutely.

Like the 21st of September won't work? The 21st of September?

No.

No.

That's Yom Kippur.

That's the fall equinox.

Oh, that's not good. Can nobody else do the first? We had three of them do the first.

First is fine. I can do the first. Are you okay with the first? I can do the first.

That's four.

Okay. October 1st at 5 p.m.

A big sigh out of...

If it doesn't work for you, we can look at something else.

Well, it doesn't work because there's something else that I like doing on Thursday nights, but that's different than it doesn't work. It's just that I would rather do something else.

I love Thursday free. It's my favorite day of the week.

I don't know what Joe's freaking doing on Wednesdays, but I bet you it's not as fun as what I do on Thursdays.

I'm sure it's not as fun at all because it's working and calling my office in China.

But that's fine. We can do the first.

So is it the first?

The first at 5 or 5.30?

Yes.

Let's go with 5. Okie doke. My husband's just dying watching this, by the way. Nobody can do four. He's like, their seats are free for her.

OK.

I would just, and I would ask staff, It would be easier if, when you create the calendar, in your calendar, to just invite. Send an invite to me so I can just click yes and add it to my calendar, that's helpful.

I have been doing that. Have you not been receiving them?

I don't think so.

Oh, okay. I will check.

Also, I have three different emails. I can confirm you've been doing four.

Oh, yeah, you send them. Great, yeah.

It goes to the city email. Yeah.

I don't think I've seen it on my city email. City email is very temperamental.

Okay, we've got a workshop scheduled. Mayor and council comments? Nothing from me. Anything from council?

Oh, yes. I'm so sorry. I know you've heard my voice so much, but I just want to say a big thanks to the parks department for the triathlon this last weekend. I know none of you guys joined me, but it was very fun. They do such a good job. You did it? Yeah, I did it on a busted bike. Do you know how long it took me to bike? 12 miles. So long.

Wow. 12 miles too.

I know. But they're there late into the evening on Friday, and then they all get there on Saturday, and they get there on Sunday morning really early. And everybody that's working is so positive and encouraging and delightful. And I wish that I had the monetary capabilities to do more for them. So I just want to say thank you so much to our Parks Department that is not here.

So I have a, just a couple of comments just on more just public issues and, or current events and field. Stop me if I'm getting out of line, uh, just to the, to the residents, um, of our neighboring area over in Spokane County. Um, just want to say it's with great sadness that we're seeing, you know, how these fires are taking your homes and businesses and wiping out your neighborhoods. And I want to say that, um, we in Post Falls, we're heartbroken for you, we're praying for you, we're worried about you, and we're standing with you in spirit. And to the residents of Post Falls, I'd strongly recommend you all be aware of what's going on in Spokane, and this probably would be a good time to make sure that your fire extinguishers are functioning, they're charged, and if you don't have them, you might want to go get some. And know where they're located, know how to work them, I know some, even here in Post Falls, I had some friends that had a fire spontaneously broke out in their home. While all that was going on, it was very scary. Fortunately, you know, thank goodness nothing happened. But just a reminder that it's an imperative for all of us to exercise due caution, not just for ourselves, but for those around us. You know, be aware of how to prevent fires from happening. And also, other current events, just like, Everyone else who I'm sure at least probably was watching this earlier, no one's probably watching it now. You know, I'm very saddened by the tragedy down in Twin Falls. I'm sure a lot of you were watching that on whether social media or on the news. And so to all those families who have suffered loss of a family member or who have family members who are currently suffering from the injury and that tragic act of violence at the new In-N-Out down there in Twin Falls, I'm very sorry for what has happened to you. I can't imagine what you're going through right now. From all of us up here in Post Falls, we're grieving with you and you are in our thoughts and in our prayers. And to all the residents of Post Falls, I hope you will take that as a reminder to be vigilant and watch out for one another. And I would acknowledge the heroic acts of that citizen who stood up and tried to stop that person who was doing that in the In-N-Out parking lot when the armed man was attacking the innocent. And I'd like to believe that there are a lot of those in our city who, given the similar circumstance, would do the same if that kind of evil were attempted here. Yeah, that's it.

Any other comments? Seeing none, we will move on to executive session.

I move to enter into executive session pursuant to Idaho Code 74-2061B. Further, no action will be taken. And during the session, the session will last approximately 30 minutes.

Second. Motion and a second. Further discussion? Roll call, please.

Luca.

Aye.

Stiglitter. Aye. Plew. Aye. Malloy. Aye. Ziegler. Aye. Motion passes. Aye. Sorry.

A little easy on that. Motion passes. We'll enter executive. All right. We will return to session. And seeing no further business, this meeting is adjourned.