Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

call the meeting to order. Please rise for the pledge. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

All right. Good evening everyone. Welcome to the November 12th planning and zoning commission meeting. Let's start with roll call, please. Carrie here, Walton here, Stephenson here, Shriber here, Wilham here. Any ceremonies, announcements, appointments, or presentations? Wanted to remind everybody?

Just want to remind everybody that on uh the November 20th, next Thursday, that we'll be having a special meeting to um approve an item on or items on the consent agenda. So, just wanted to remind you on that. And you do have the option. We will need one in representative. I believe the chair will be here. The other ones will have the option to phone in. So, if we can find out what the tally is at if we don't already know, that'd be great. Okay. Uh 5:30. 5:30. Okay. Yeah. Let's talk about that at the end of the meeting. Okay. Perfect. Get that figured out. Any amendments to the agenda?

There's none. Any declaration of conflict, exparte contact or site visit from commission members? All right, seeing none, uh, consent calendar, please. Yeah, we got one item. It's action item A, the meeting minutes from the October 14th, 2025 meeting. Any questions on that? Nope. I'd like to make a motion. I make a motion to approve the meeting minutes from the October 14th meeting uh, as presented. Okay, I have a motion. I'll second it. And a second. Roll call, please. Carrie, yes. Walton, yes. Stephenson,

yes. Schneider, Shriber, Shriber, yes. W Willilham, yes. All right. Next item is citizen issues. This section of the agenda is reserved for citizens wishing to address the commission on an item that is not on the agenda tonight for persons wishing to speak will have five minutes. Do we have anybody? All right. Unfinished or old business? There's none.

Okay. That'll move us into the meat of the meeting, our public hearings. We have two of them tonight. If you're wishing to speak in the public testimony, uh, many of you already have, but if you haven't, fill out the form in the back, bring that up front here. Um, and before we open this, since this process might be new to some of you, let me kind of just give you a rundown of how it kind of works. The, uh, city will do their presentation first, the applicant will do their next presentation, and then you will have the public testimony where you guys, if you want wishing to speak or not, you can fill out the form. You'll have four minutes to speak. Um, during that time, it's not a back and forth. to sign a Q&A with the commission or the applicant or the city. If you have questions, just direct them out. The applicant will then be able to address them in their rebuttal time after all the public hearing. Um, please be respectful to everybody. No. Um, the only person allowed to speak is up here at the podium. So, nothing from the audience, no oo's, no clapping. Please, let's just there's quite a few of us here tonight. So, let's just keep this moving along. Um, and then one final thing is even though these are both labeled as annex files, what we're doing tonight as a planning commission meeting is looking at the criteria and doing a recommendation of a zoning. Nothing's actually going to be approved, annex into the city or not. We're recommending a zoning that will then be moved forward to city council. City council will look at that and then they'll make the decision on whether that zoning fits and if it can be annexed into the city. So, just keep that in mind as you're doing your comments. With that being said, uh, we'll open the public hearing. Meguire Annex, file number ANNX25-4. Good evening, planning commission. My name is Justin Souder and before you

this evening is the Meguire annexation file number ANNX-25-4. So the applicant is uh looking for the planning commission to forward a recommendation to the city council for a zoning designation of medium density residential on approximately 18.11 acres as part of an annexation request into the city. There are actually four different parcels with this request and four separate land owners as you can see here on the top of the screen. Here is the project location. It's on the southwest corner of Poline Avenue and Meguire Road. And then it's just north of Yukon Avenue and the railroad tracks that are going there along diagonally. Here you can see the site is not currently within the city and therefore does not have a zoning designation. It's in the black hatched area. The properties to the north, south, and west are all within the county and contain single family homes on large lots. The property to the east is within the city in the single family residential zone. And the applicant is requesting a zone designation of R2. As you can see here on the map, there are some R2 further south on Midway Avenue. Let's see if this is working right here. Um, and there was also two recent annexations, the Painted Rock annexation and Lingard that were also both in the R2 zone designation. And then further south um or further, there are R1 subdivisions east of Meguire further north and south of the project site. Um there's some up here as well. The four lots are currently all used as single family homes over the Wrath Drum Prairie Aquifer. The water would be the East Green Acres Irrigation District and the waste water would be provided or

handled by the city of Post Falls. We have the capacity and the willingness to serve the property at the requested density and any existing septic systems would be required to be removed. Both Maguire and Poline are arterial roadways and Yukon is a local roadway. Additional rights of way and easements would need to be provided as part of the annexation and road widening at the time of development. Now we will get into the zoning criteria. The first is the proposed zoning district consistent with the future land use map and focus area contained in the currently adopted postfalls comprehensive plan. The future land use designation of the subject property is considered transitional which is designated for areas suitable for growth and you can see that here in the purple or sort of lavender color. The timing for growth is undetermined, but guidance can be found within the comprehensive plan in the West Prairie focus area. The assigned zone should be compatible with the adjacent zones and uses and consistent with the guiding principles of the focus area. The site is adjacent to properties with a land use designation of transitional to the north, south, and west and low density residential to the east as mentioned previously. And you can see here on the left, there's also some medium density residential further south on the train tracks. Further south of the train tracks down here. The West Prairie focus area states that mixed residential is envisioned between Maguire Road and Corbin Road with higher density near commercial corridors and arterials. Some areas within the focus area may warrant commercial use considerations if adjacent to arterial or collector streets where traffic volumes exceed 4,000 vehicle trips per day or was within a commercial activity node. This site happens to be within a commercial

activity node as you can see here denoted by the green circle. Um it's also along two arterials. Both Meguire and Pole line are arterial roads. Some of uh the uses that would in a commercial node may consist of a variety of retailer office or other commercial to be integrated in the nearby community and the ultimate goal is to create a focal point. However, another consideration is that Poland Avenue does not currently have good east and west connectivity which may impact commercial at uh this location. The proposed medium-density residential would be compatible with properties in the immediate vicinity that are utilized as single family properties because the R2 zone would also allow residences at varying densities. And the intent of the applicant is to develop this property as detached single family homes would be similar to something like Montro subdivision to the southeast. Medium density may also be consistent with properties along Meguire further south that have been annexed earlier this year. The properties that I mentioned um that you can see um down here in the orange. Moving on to the second review criteria which states is the proposed zoning district consistent with the goals and policies contained in the currently adopted comprehensive plan. The annexation request is consistent with goal one of the comprehensive plan which aims to grow and sustain a balanced resilient um economy for postfalls providing community prosperity and fiscal health. The R2 zone can deliver attainable housing choices in the form of cottage homes, tiny homes, twin homes, town homes, or even the typical single family home, which again is what this developer is intending to do. There are several factors that need to be considered when applying to a new zone designation and they include future land use mapping which we've talked about a little bit as well as the

compatibility with surrounding land uses um and then the goals and the policies. So now we'll talk about infrastructure and existing and future traffic patterns. As for infra infrastructure sanitary sewer is located within Meguire Road and would be discharged to the Montro lift station. The station has capacity for the required zone and is in conformance with the city's water reclamation plan. And for traffic, Meuire and Pole Line are both classified as arterial roadways and are currently configured as two-lane roads. Modeling with the current transportation master plan indicates over 70% of roadway capacity is available with the current road configuration. However, to accommodate the projected traffic volumes up until the year 2035, Maguire Road would require widening to a five road lane con five lane road configuration and Poland would be widened to a threelane configuration. As a condition of annexation, full urban improvements along both sides of Yukon Avenue would be required, including roadway, sidewalk, swale, curb, and gutter. still on review criteria two. The annexation is also consistent with goal seven which uh the goal is to plan for and establish types and quantities of land uses and postfalls supporting community needs and the city's long-term sustainability. The R2 land use designation may help with community needs and long-term sustainability by providing additional housing. Um, this also goes kind of handinhand with policy 15, which the annexation of the subject site with the zoning request would help provide land for future housing needs at a medium density in an area that is projected to be incorporated into the city. Upon subdivision development, roadway and pedestrian improvements would be required and completed, allowing for

continuity of roadways and help create future pedestrian connectivities through sidewalks as encouraged by policy 33. The third and final review criteria, does the proposed zoning district create a demonstrable adverse impact upon the delivery of services? and there have been no identified adverse impacts at this time. Here are the agencies that were notified of the project and we received comments back from these five. The majority of them were either neutral or had no comments or would comment at the time of development. We did get one comment uh from the postfalls highway district and it was regarding access on pole line and Yukon. So the original comment stated that access should be restricted on both pull line and Yukon. We followed up with them after the staff report was published and you can see that correspondence here and they clarified that further comments regarding access will come at the time of the subdivision request. Here's the review criteria for you once again. And as it was already mentioned, just a reminder that uh there is no decision being made tonight. Uh, the applicant is requesting the planning and zoning commission forward a recommendation of zoning of R2 to the city council for consideration. That concludes my presentation. I'm available for questions. You do have any? And then the applicant is here as well.

Any questions? I have one question. Um, you said that uh the future of Meuire and Pole Line would be expanded to five lanes and three lanes, but I missed the timing on that. Um, the projection. Yeah, the projection was looking at traffic up until 2035. Okay. Uh, but I believe that that as a condition, let me look at the conditions again. Um, also we have Rob Paulus here, city engineer, and he might be able to go into a little more depth regarding the timing of No, I just Okay, but yes, Magguire 5 the detail lanes and pole line would be three lanes. Perfect. Thank you.

Well, Maguire is going to be shut off here pretty soon, isn't it? At the end of Meguire, you won't be able to drive through there anymore. Is that right, Rob?

I'm going to defer to Rob on that one. Good evening members of the commission. Robert Paulace, city engineer. Uh Magguire Road is going to be closed off in the next year at Highway 53. That will change how modeling impacts the area. Uh we are doing that and analyzing that with our transportation master plan update. The anticipation is that um the traffic flows on Meguire will probably go down. However, at this time, I cannot give you advice as to how to move forward based upon a transportation master plan update that has not been uh accepted by city council or had a public hearing on it to be accepted or denied by city council. So, I'm going off of what is the currently adopted city's transportation master plan, which looked at traffic through 2035 and what the model results would have. That in mind, whether it's a three-lane arterial or a five lane arterial, we require the same amount of rideway, which is the 55- ft half-road ride ofway. So we can cover what's needed and there's room to expand to a wider road if if necessary as well. That's a little bit more than what you asked, but I hope it gets a little bit better.

Well, and then pole line, three lanes. Pole line is anticipated to be a three-lane arterial from Pleasant View Road to Meuire. God, I remember when that was a cow trail. So, but um our master planning is also anticipating a future traffic signal at Pole Line and Pleasant View as well. Yeah, I don't see the the five lanes if they're going to turn off Magguire, but I see that you're going on what you're I have to go off of what's accepted right now. Right. So, okay. Any other questions for me while I'm up here?

Questions? Oh, I have a question. you sit down and come back. Uh, didn't we already we the our commission approve that corner up there and then didn't city council shut that down? Did we did we do that last year? The corner of I think you're talking about the Briner Maguire and uh pole line that corner.

Yeah, the southwest corner. There's a five acre piece. It was the Briner annexation. the PNZ forwarded recommendation of zoning to it and it went to city council and then that was denied. Now this is a completely different application and so we'll be looking at this one um as well with its own credence based off the criteria on forward zoning and then council will then have its dthers and how it reviews death record. Okay. How does the commercial node designation impact this? because it doesn't seem like R2 fits a commercial node.

Once again, the R2 um I mean the commercial node when we did our last comprehensive plan, we were looking at eligible locations that could form additional residential locations andor potential facilitate a commercial node. not saying it was a a mandate by any means. And that's why you have the goals and policies and and items stated in those focus areas. That's where when Justin brought up the east and west connectivity that plays a role in the viability of commercial. If they're looking at the transportation master plan longterm, Polline Avenue may not be planned to go further east than Meuire. And if that's the case, then it may have some down the road, north, south. But I think it opens up the discussion to contemplate other uses than commercial on that due to the unknowns of pole line. It would take a a bridge structure to go over the railroad. They're highlighted in blue.

So it would take an expensive construction effort and uh investments on that. And so I think what they're looking at in their transportation master plan is the viability of that and is it a a needed object. Okay. Thank you. Any other questions?

Invite the applicant up. Good evening, commissioners. I see I got the date wrong. Um, my name is Ray Kimble. I'm an engineer with Whipple Consulting Engineers. I'm here tonight representing the owners, um, the four owners. Um, as you may notice, this was a cobbled together um, application. So, uh, it's taken quite a bit of effort for us to come together to get these four owners um, in the in this uh, annexation. So, as you can see here, this is the project site. These are the four properties. Um it takes quite a bit of effort to to do um put these kinds of properties together. Um, and the reason for doing that was to put together an application that we could bring forward to city council that showed that there's some rhyme and reason to um a a single application that is a little bit larger that shows dedication of rights away in a in a very uh orderly manner. So not just peacemeal here and there onesie twoosy um but to try to make a very a concerted effort to put these uh properties together so that they annex at one time and there's some certainty as to annexation uh rightway dedication etc. Um so the future land use map as Justin pointed out it this is transitional which pushes pushes us towards um the comprehensive plan. Um the

proposed R2 annexation here. So as you can see there is R2 um here to the south uh that was recently annexed. This right here is an R2 subdivision. So, this R2 to the south was annexed uh a couple months ago as a um single family R2 single family. Um and that's what we're asking for tonight on this. Um the idea behind that being is that we want to provide housing for um entry- level housing. So smaller lots um provide that market or try to satisfy that part of the market and properties like this are and we'll talk about a little bit more but this right here is is the uh proposed layout that shows what um I know it's a little bit of it's not official um but this is what we will be submitting with um moving forward uh given uh if we are annexed into the city And of course, this is uh this shows that it is a single family residential uh subdivision, and we're perfectly okay with a single family res detached housing restriction. Uh should that be the the desire of the commission as well as the council to put that restriction, that's not a big deal. Uh fully is our intent to do that. Um so, is this proposed district in consistent with the future land use map? Yes, 100% it is. So, it promotes infill development, pritori prioritizes annexation opportunities and it supports development patterns that are interconnected and provide pedestrian connectivity. One of the pedestrian connectivity points that we want to point out is that this is a we're putting in over well so just on just on Meuire when the subdivision comes in'll put on put in over a quarter

mile of pedestrian pathway in an important pedestrian corridor that is so right now um any kids walking down that part of the street get to walk in the street or on the shoulder or off the shoulder um and so being able to develop that quarter mile of road um gives pedestrian connectivity uh important pedestrian connectivity uh to the south. Um it doesn't do it all the way, but it does a good chunk of it and that's important. So we get what we can when we can and that's an important thing. Um when it comes to infill is it um so there we are. That is the yellow. So in the green you can see count the county zoning. Um and I'm going to move forward. So this infill development right here, this speaks to so you can see the the light or the green here is city of Post Falls. This is the current city of Post Falls uh area and except for this tiny little piece right here that is a that is an island. So um this is by definition infill development. Um it's within the area city impact and as you know by definition the area city impact is the area where the city can expect to grow. Um but no one is required to annex into the city. Uh they are just have the opportunity to do so when they are connected and if they want to they can come to the city and say hey we'd like to come in and that's what we're doing here tonight. Um this is the classic infill de development area of the city of Post Falls. This is the central island and what you see there in red is you see all the five acre plus parcels that are in that area and there are over 200 properties in the central island and only 19 of them are by themselves easily developable as some sort of a single family residential. you'll see probably

I think tonight the other item on the agenda um is a is a similar to ours where they cobbled together several properties in the central island in order to uh put together a what would be a easily developable um piece of property. So by comparison between Corbin and Magguire and south of Poline of the 55 properties that are there uh only five of them would not be easily developable which shows you really um where where's the land in our area city impact that is not green field development the five and 10 acre parcels where is that available where water's available where sewer's easily available um and that points us in this direction. So this is infill development. Um and so with regards to the goals and policies, the comprehensive plan, we want to work to improve street connectivity in the city of Post Falls. So and a big part of that is is building our arterial streets. So when we have the opportunity to annex arterials and collectors or properties along arterials and collectors, they come with um they come with rightway and easement. And the big question I so a prior city engineer uh so when I once upon a time when I had a lot less gray hair um I asked the city engineer at the time uh why don't we just annex the entire island? Why why don't we just do that? He looked at me like I was stupid and he said because we'd have to buy the rightway in order to widen the roads and when people volunteer to annex the rightway is given to the city and then when the subdivision follow on subdivision is built the rightway improvements are done at no cost to the city and those are

those are big benefits. So moving towards that. So as as staff mentioned, Poline and Meuire are both arterials. This right here is the cost um inclusive of rightway dedication or rightaway cost as well as um construction costs to build the frontage. That's today's cost is $681,000 of infrastructure that upon subdivision and construction that the city gets for free. Um if we escalate that at 2% to 2035 that's an 800,000 834 $32,000 benefit. So to say it differently, in 2035 when the city's transportation master plan says we're going to need this and this isn't annex, the city's going to have get to write a check for somewhere in the neighborhood of $832,000 in order to build it. Whereas today city gets it for free um if annexed into the city. And so, and of course, does the zoning produce a demonstrable impact upon delivery of services? And the answer to that is no. I did kind of skip over why are we going for R2, which is kind of the big part of this. Um, so why are we going for R2? Um, so R2 single family provides a need for single family housing, uh, entry level in particular, um, which is what we're shooting for. I read a statistic last week um that the median home price in Coupney County is over $530,000 and has gone up um in the last year. Um Spokane County is less. it's 400 and some. Um, but the reality is is that if we have people who are

people who who move here, move this area, have their opportunity, have an opportunity to to pick anywhere they want to move. And so they're moving here on purpose. They have the ability and they can afford it. those folks who um our kids and our grandkids. I heard once um one of my clients said that if he wants all of his children and grandchildren to stay in this area that it's going to need 27 more homes just for his children and grandchildren to stay in the area. And that really hit home because that's 27 homes that one guy who's been here for 50 years is talking about. And the reality is that affordability matters. And the one of the few levers that we have as a city is to be able to help the supply side. We don't get to change the demand side. We don't get to close the doors. We don't get to do any of that. But we get to help the supply side. And in order to do that, annexing properties um like this with this R2 single family designation provides the city the opportunity to put to move the needle on or at least hold the needle a little bit on home prices in this area. Provide opportunities for affordable homes and and I almost choke when I say that, but at least attainable homes. um that are that that are available for those people who have grown up here and maybe or maybe have grown up here, moved away and want to move back and raise their family here. And I think it's really important for young families to have this opportunity and this R2 zoning uh meets all the criteria u for annexation as R2. It meets comprehensive plan. U Commissioner Shriber to answer your

question about the U commercial node if it wasn't answered better um by staff. Um we feel that because at this time um because the lack of uh traffic on pole line that is not a viable at this time that southeast corner um that's currently the miller farm operation. That's the location where they're u that's their shop location. They plan on using that for the next for the foreseeable future until they just stop farming. And at that point, I would expect that if the if the traffic is a is high enough to generate a commercial node, um a need for a commercial node in that area, that that would probably be the right time and the right place. It's on the correct side of the road. It's on the going home side. Hang it right when you're going home.

So, that'd be the that'd be the correct spot for that. Um, and other than that, I'd like to answer any questions you might have if you have any. Any questions for the applicant? No. No questions. Thank you. Thank you.

Public testimony. Okay. All right. All right, I'm going to go through all the ones that do not wish to speak. Apologize in advance if I butcher your name. So, we are not wishing to speak. In favor, Darien Dukat maybe. Our city needs additional housing opportunities for our families. Not wishing to speak in favor. Uh Jeremy Bolier just in favor now wishing to speak in favor. Felix Olenick in favor of this annexation and reszone. The improvements in the rightways will benefit the surrounding area and everyone that drives down Maguire. Not wishing to speak in opposition. Let's see. We got Stacy I don't know Smith Trust too much building. Uh we are we are property owners and for the for that reason we are concerned about apartments. Uh, Cheryl Mossberg, see attachment.

All right, I'm going read this into the record. All right. An American promise. An American that used to be rock solid. Play by the rules, but something that lasts. Something something to pass on. Something worth fighting for. Our legacy carved from the land itself, a proud symbol of our family's grit. That promise has become a little shaky these days. What is rightfully ours can be snatched away by a faceless bureaucracy. A committee can decide if a family's heritage is less important than their latest brilliant on paper social scheme. A mere penstroke can designate your life's work as obsolete to their current agenda. a plot of land to pause to be paused over in the name of progress. Generations have poured their souls into the soil only to be told by their town that it was to be seized for an affordable housing project. This is a textbook example of Modern vision for America. A farm is not seen as a symbol of our nation's strength, but as an underdeveloped resource for our government program. Their noble goals always end with them getting power and getting and you getting less. This is not about housing. It's about control. It's about certain planning communities and erasing the traditions that give our nation and our individual neighborhoods their unique character. The farm and the land in question here tonight are just convenient convenient pieces of a real estate in our government's overall plan. This land and acreage are farms that once sustained and could continue to sustain families for some time for generations. This is

quite destruction that is being waged here and across America. Our war on this very idea that has been built is and should remain. This meeting tonight is not just a local zoning dispute. It is an assault on the American dream itself. Postfall city bureaucrats need to end the systematic lawfare of government weaponization against the land remaining agricultural to start. Elected members should serve their will and their constit con constituents defending citizens and their patrons and not granting one sizefits-all approach to the bottom line profit a form of legal theft. Rural America should and does stand tall rooted in grit faith and timeless bond between families, people and the soil. on one side of the ideology that values that views a family legacy as a resource to be seized. The other side honors the American dream with a promise to believe in it, fiercely protect it, and defend uh the legacy as it represents. Um, not wishing to speak in opposition. Pette and Glenn Cooper. We do not want this annexation. Uh, file levy failure, taxes, traffic issues, livestock rich risk, open range, safety of residents, and noise. Uh, now wishing to speak in opposition, Ashley Tilden. I submitted an email. Please refer to that. Absolutely opposed to that and that was in the staff report.

Uh Rick Heinland in opposition, not wishing to speak. Submitted an email refer to that. Oppose. Not wishing to speak. In opposition, uh Clayton Blocker, not in favor of annexation, does not comply with the county comprehensive plan. Um, let's see. Karen Kase, um, not wishing to speak in opposition. How many residents residencies going in here? Opposition because there's too many built in the area for the amount of roadways. Where where will the entrance and exit of the neighborhood be? Uh, Yukon Magguire poll line question mark. Will Yukon go through to Pleasant View or it will be widened? Uh, when was the west side of Corbin annex in uh in sewer lines? How do we get informed without just by chance? Not wishing to speak in opposition. Mary Mort. This is a rural area and bring and it will bring in much traffic to the two-lane roads. Uh if it is like the meadows, okay, but duplexes, apartments, they will be too close together bringing lower class of people. That's those All right. Wishing to speak in favor. John Ridesbow. Rudsbow.

Right. Name for the record. And you have four minutes. I believe the timer is right there.

Perfect. Uh my name is John Rudabah. I am a local resident here in Post Falls. Been here for a long time. I got three kids that go to Post Falls schools. Um one is now in college. And I am in favor of this for the the biggest reason being affordable housing. Um because my son moved away to college. He's going to come back. He wants to. It's obviously between rent and buying a home is kind of unobtainable for a young adult now in the area. And as I learned in the eighth grade, it's supply and demand. I mean the area people want to be here and it helps with the supply. I'm also in favor because I understand the impact that developers have when they kind of help build the city infrastructure. It gets it eliminates levies like they talked about. If you have to buy the rideaways and pay for all the stuff, it will be complete. And I'm also in favor of creating local jobs, which is which is a great thing for our area. And in a development like this, between from start to finish, there'll be tons of suppliers, local businesses, restaurants that get the workers working there. It's just good for our local economy. I hope the commission sees the benefit to the city and the community and will approve this annexation request. That's all I have.

Thank you. Thank you.

Uh wishing to speak in favor Wade Jacqueline. Hello, I'm Wade Jacqulin. Um, I uh am a resident in Cordelane, but I did want to bring up uh I'm my cousin Mike and myself are the applicants for this annexation request. Um, I grew up in the area. My dad, my uncles grew up in this area. Grandfather, grandparents, and their siblings. Um, I did buy my first house on Henry Street just up the road about 30 years ago. Um, and love living here. Um, I just wanted to point partially out because I did read some of the letters that were submitted. We are local. You know, we care about what's created here and we're doing it with intent and we're doing it with thought. It's important to us that whatever we do on this particular property, assuming that it gets approved, is something that our children would be proud of moving forward. Like Ry mentioned, we are looking for a single family designation. R2, we're not looking to build low-income housing. We're looking to build affordable housing like the home that I bought 30 years ago that I could raise my family in. So the kids can grow up with the same lifestyle I enjoyed that we all enjoy and raise their families here too. Without that kind of inventory, it's starting to get out of reach if not already. Um the infrastructure that we'll be providing, assuming this gets approved, is a intersection to intersection

improvement on Meguire from pole line to Yukon, which is a huge amount of money. And we intentionally did this over the course of over a year now to cobble together these four properties so it would not be a hodgepodge infrastructure improvement. It would be one fell swoop. It will look great. Provide some pedestrian uh safety north and south, you know, in the grassy swale landscaped with trees. Um, also if you saw on uh the preliminary plat proposal, we're looking to move the intersection for Yukon up north away from those railroad tracks. Right now, it enters right next to them, which is again not the safest way to do it, and we're thoughtful about that and want to make sure that that's a safe entrance into the neighborhood, which currently it really isn't. Um, again, the time it took us to cobble these together, and I'm not sure how often that even happens. I mean, you guys would know where you can get four different property owners contiguous to one another, intersection to intersection, to agree on the same basically the same moment in time to allow us to work through something like this is pretty rare at best. you know, it's almost unheard of. So, with that, I just like to remind everybody, we are locals. Cousin Mike and I, we're open to have conversations with you after, obviously, if this does get recommended for consideration by this council. Um, we're happy to visit and explain exactly thoughts or clarify anything that you'd like. The one other thing that'll happen that I think Ry probably had on his spreadsheet up there about the cost savings for the city is the movement of the aista power poles that go up and

down uh Meguire as well as on pole line to get them out of the future rightway for the Meguire expansion. So um again hope that you guys can see the benefit. We are looking to do good things that will last and be positive for the community. Thank you Mr. Jaclyn. You're the applicant. I can ask you a question. Well, Commissioner will So, the applicant already had a representative up. If we open this up to questions, it's it's a little out of character in the way we normally do things. Um, perhaps if you have a question at the end, uh, you can address them back to the applicant upon his rebuttal. Okay.

Sorry. I think that would be appropriate. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Uh, wishing to speak in favor. Amy Gilmore. Hello. Oh, can you hear me? Hello. Yeah, here you go.

I'm Amy Gilmore. I live in Post Falls. I live just north um off of Howell in Lake Prairie Meadows. So, I have five kids from freshman in high school to two kindergarteners and they beg to walk to school and they cannot walk to school safely in that area. Just right there is cars coming out of Yukon and then the railroad tracks. So, they have to go I will drive them to the LDS church on Midway and then let them walk to school. So if it for us it would just be a benefit to improve that area just safety and it is ready for improvement like all on the one side is happening. So, that's mostly what I wanted to say. And it's local developers who are going to be here and make it nice. Um, and the savings to the city, but mostly just safety for my kids who are wanting begging to ride their bikes to Corbin Park to fish. And I'm like, wait, no, there's no safe way. There's not even a little trail. Like on Chase, there's kind of a trail that they could go on, but right there, there's nothing. It's just the road. You're not really even looking for kids if you're driving. So, that's it. I just hope they can approve it. Thank you.

All right. Thank you.

Wishing to speak in favor to Charlie Rens. My name is Charlie Rens. I'm a longtime resident of Cordelane, Hayden, and Post Falls. Uh, I'm in favor of this program here because of the things that have already been mentioned this evening. Widening of the road at the developers expense, not the city's expense. Uh, meeting the criteria of the comprehensive plan with sewer virtually in the street. Uh, these type of things don't come often. Usually, if a property needs to be annexed, it's coming from a distance with the utilities. So, it seems like everything here is lining up to be a winning proposition, not only for the street, but for future development. Again, the R2 zoning allows to go down to a smaller single family residents, not apartments, not duplexes, but single family homes. And the more that uh this area provides that, the better it's going to be for our community. Second of all, from statistics that I've uh obtained through the um National Builders Association, for every one house built, there's 124 businesses participating in it. That brings a lot to our economy. And I don't believe and I remember years back when the Meadows went in, the transportation around the Meadows was pretty weak. Now we have roundabouts, all the rest of it. And I believe that's what's going to happen is we're going to see these improvements happening everywhere.

And it's a best first step, I believe, that this gets approved and move forward to the council. Thank you. Thank you.

Wishing to speak in favor, Jason Knox. My name is Jason Ox. I'm actually a resident of Rathrum, but I would like to be a resident of Post Falls um if I could afford it. Uh Mr. Chairman, members of the commission, thank you for your time tonight. Primarily, I wanted to speak in favor of this uh because as a young person looking to establish themsel, looking to build something for themsel here. Um my fear is I won't be able to afford a home in any reasonable time frame. I would love to raise a family and and have kids and grandkids grow up in this area, an area that means a lot to me and to my family and has for a long time. Uh and that that ideal feels increasingly out of reach. Uh I did find an interesting report done by uh professor Steven Peterson from the University of Idaho in 2023. Median home price in Coney County from 2016 to 2023 rose by 139% and the average home price rose by 160%. From 2016 to 2022 they estimate the economic impact of lack of affordable housing to be 5340 jobs to the region. $535.6 million in gross regional product and $28 million in total taxes lost. And it's just simple supply and demand. If we limit supply, prices spike and we have huge shortages. Uh in addition to that, I think the impact on small business is uh greatly understated. It's already hard enough for small businesses to find employees and find help. Uh and if if we're limiting the affordable housing available to employees, it becomes that much more difficult for small businesses to grow and for postfalls to have a viable economic future. It's easy to see the benefit of economic

growth to the community and ensuring projects like this get built is one of the best ways to ensure economic viability in postfalls and that is why I encourage your approval for the zoning recommendation and annexation. Thank you. Thank you. Wishing to speak in opposition, Marley Owen.

Hello.

Good evening. My name is Marily Owen. I'm a direct bordering neighbor to the proposed annexation site. I'm in favor of the annexation and development of the proposed site. However, the reasonzoning of R2 is in stark contrast to the current surroundings. The community development department report states, quote, "The surrounding the subject site is predominantly single family residential. Located to the north, south, and west is single family uses on larger lots. Directly east across North Maguire Road is a field with farming equipment. The staff report references similar medium density zoning close to the proposed site. However, all of these are located south of the railroad tracks and the Grand Junction. Also, south of the tracks, Maguire has already been widened to accommodate higher volume with three lanes. The staff report references the widening of Maguire to five lanes, but not until 2035. Postfalls, Coutney County, and the railroad seem to have a contentious relationship as Pline Avenue has been diverted through a neighborhood and school zone for a decade. If a train is stopped at the Grand Junction, sometimes for up to an hour, it stretches across Pole Line, Maguire, and Corbin crossings, meaning that for an emergency vehicle to access north of the tracks, they would have to cross at Chase or Pleasant View. In the community development department report, policy 38 requires the planning of new development to ensure the provision of public services at current levels of service identified in the city adopted master plans. The staff comment is quote, "Per the West Prairie focus area of the comprehensive plan, the infrastructure to support urban development is mostly not in place at this time, but has been planned for."

unquote. In conclusion, the department's own report seems to contradict the validity of the R2 zoning. Thank you for your time and consideration. Thank you. Wishing to speak in opposition, Floyd Mossberg.

Thank you for the opportunity to speak. Um I border I live on Yukon over the years I've been here which is my lifelong is I've watched the prairie disappear and um it just seems like okay you're going to have sewers that I'm going to have to pay for and I just I just hate to see housing developments where there used to be farmland farm people that live there. So anyway, that's all I have to say. Thank you for the opportunity to speak.

Thank you. Wishing to speak in opposition. It's either Don or Dan Liddell Lidle. Sorry if I mispronounced it. Yeah, thank you. My name is Don Leiddell. I uh live about midway between Corbin and Maguire on pole line. Uh I I don't understand a couple of things here. One, this property was tried to be a petition to be zoned for single family homes just just shortly ago, a couple months ago, and it was denied. And so now it's being up again. And instead of single family homes, they want multif family homes. Plus, they want to annex it into the city. Uh I pretty clearly remember recently or earlier this year a statement on the uh front page of the Post Falls Express. I believe it was by Mayor Jacobson that there were not going to be any more boundary expansion of Post Falls just for development for at least the rest of this year. Uh, and just like both Yukon and Pole Line are not paved roads. They're just they're just chip sealed with a little bit of gravel under them. I would

question whether they're going to handle the traffic or not. And on a personal thing, I purchased that property because it was owned sub agriculture and I bought it to retire on. And I really if I wanted to live in the city, I there was many opportunities to buy a place in the city. That's not what I want and I still don't. That's all I have. Thank you. Thank you. wishing to speak in opposition. Allan uh Horning.

My name is Alan Horning and I live on the corner of Pole Line and Maguire. Um I hate to see it go to an R2 designation. I would prefer to have the single family homes. Uh I'm really worried about the Maguire. It's it's a very hazardous road. I live right there. I see so many near accidents, speeding, racing, it's out of control. And to hear that it's going to go to a five lane road, that just scares the heck out of me. It's really, really bad. I mean, there's no It's never watched. It's just terrible. You get motorcycles that are passing on the inside and outside of cars doing wheelies down there. Cars that people get the cars and they just, you know, they want to test drive them. Okay. It's just to, you know, to add all the extra traffic and go to five lanes. I'm really concerned about it. Thank you.

Thank you. Wishing to speak in opposition, Gerald Dale. Good evening and thank you for the opportunity. My name is Gerald Dale. For the record, I'm a 25-y year resident of Poline Avenue directly in the impact zone of this Echo Estates annex proposal. Just in case my following remarks don't concl conclusively convey my opinion, I vote no and am opposed to any annexation and especially the R2 zoning. This proposal is four times bigger and twice as offensive as the Briner annex that was previously shot down by the city council. Even with the engineer of that previous proposal saying R1 made more sense, I would ask this body, what changed? Why is this even being considered? The opinions expressed by the voters in the recent election last week for mayor and city council shakeup, the fire levy failure, all three of your own surveys from the SJC Alliance group at the postfalls days, the existing comprehensive plan for the city and county along with all of the council's comments on the denied Briner proposal clearly show that enough is enough with the high density and clearly this particular one is a bad idea. and not in the bench best and I quote not in the best interest of the city much less the surrounding residents. I spent last evening getting to know all of my neighbors on Yukon Poline Harrave Corbin and even a couple in the city limits off Maguire letting them know about the current proposal in tonight's meeting. 36 homeowners visited 35 opposed one no opinion.

I think that the time may I think that by the time myself and a couple of my neighbors get done visiting all of the people in our quote transitional area in the unincorporated county before the next city council meeting things may be getting interesting. This is the fir isn't the first time I've had to walk my precinct and it looks like it won't be the last. Everyone understands and is willing to accept change. But in this case, you are going to to the other side of the tracks both literally and figuratively. It is a different feel, a different vibe. And we are here tonight to swat the density camel's nose as he sticks it into the other side of those tracks. This is a unique area. Again, read your own comp plans, listens to your own council's members. It is going to be so peacemeal that no formal plan can be made or implemented. Most of these five acre parcels will not be available at any price until the current occupants die over the next 30 years. Myself included. And then most of them are in trust so will be handed down. Long-term residents have nowhere. We long-term residents have nowhere else to go. This is a great spot. We don't want to go anywhere else. We can't afford to go anywhere else. Believe it or not, we can't afford to go anywhere else. We moved here for what it was for what this unique area is and was, not what someone or some central planning decided they want our property to be, so they can make huge profits and leave us to pay the bill, raising our taxes and cost of living. If developed, this track will greatly impact and increase the traffic on a Yukon and especially pole line. Um, original estimates estimated 151 trips.

Now it is 4 to eight times that, somewhere between 800 and,200 trips coming onto our existing streets, which are rural. Most of the people coming onto these streets are not acquainted with negotiating all of the stock animals, horses, and other things that are on these streets. We can't have that much traffic on these streets. I have many more comments, but I'm out of time. Appreciate you listening. Thank you.

Wishing to speak in opposition, Tim Terrell, Senior Okay. Yeah. My name is Tim Terrell, Senior, and I live on 2855 West Yukon Avenue. So, I'm just west of this proposed annexation. And uh my family has owned the property since uh 1988, my folks. And uh several years ago I built a new home on there and I used to live in Hayden Lake. And the reason my folks moved out there uh was used to live right where WCO is at now and that was annexed into the city and so went back out to the county. We moved out there but in response to some of the accounts in respect to the engineering firm and also before I mention that Mr. Wilhelm mentioned yeah it was denied and that was when uh Doper Engineering like my neighbor uh Mr. Dale said, "What's changed?" So, other than it's just bigger. Um, and then in response to the young lady said her children could walk on the sidewalk. Well, that's that's nice, but that that just be on the annex side, the east side, which is I guess Jacquine. When is that going to happen? 2035. So, and it's just peacemeal checkerboard as far as safety and um pedestrian. But I probably should throw a caveat in here that I'm retired 35 years with the Idaho Transportation Department. I

worked 20 years in traffic engineering and several years in consulting work with several firms, local firms. Um, excuse me, look a couple my notes here. Um, it was mentioned the railroad and now Meuire is still and that backs up the traffic because the the uh interchange the 53 is going to be at least another year and with the operating engineers strike could be a little bit longer. So anyway, that traffic backs up from Meuire past Hayden Lake when there's a train. So that's a good half mile. And uh you'll see the same thing right now at the UP. The UP is a primary line there. And so the traffic backs it from that. And and it's correct. Yukon, the old design is it's you know, it's right next to that. So, it is a challenge for uh emergency vehicles to be able to get to us. Um, also there's a uh I didn't see it. It was turned off by the planner here. There is Yellowstone pipeline that P, but there's also a natural gas line that runs east west parallel to it, south of it there through the middle of our properties there between P line and uh Yukon. So, I'm not sure how that's going to be addressed because you can't build over the top of that. Um, but lastly is my if I again speak in denial of this, it's just not time. It's about two years at least in my opinion to be looked at to be annexed into the city. And so, thank you for your time.

Thank you. Wishing to speak in opposition. Debbie Voka.

Hello, my name is Debbie Vodka and I live south on echo of this annexation request. Um, I think that the future land use map is really outdated and I know that's what they all have to go by right now, but it doesn't seem like decisions should be made on something that's really outdated. Um, this land is in the transitional I guess zoning and it doesn't really just give the license to do anything. Not anything should be allowed there. Um, I oppose R2. I don't want to see more smaller lots. I don't think our streets can handle it. There's already a lot of traffic in this area. Um, people stay longer in a home that has a yard for kids. I know my daughters bought starter homes, but then once their families grew, they needed a bigger home with bigger yards. So, there is a need for those, too. Um, I don't think growth should be driven by the developers that they talk about making affordable housing, but really it's just about their profit and it should be growth should come with a lot of forethought for the future and the benefit of those who already live here. Um, I want to thank you for the opportunity to speak and just encourage you to listen to the people who live here, not the developers because they sure wouldn't want all this happening in their neighborhood. Um, increase of traffic, increase of noise. You know, it's nice to talk about it being so great for other people, but what, you know, what would they say if it was their neighborhood? Um, and this walkway, if McGuire is going to be widened, why are they going to bother putting in a walkway right now? Thank you.

Thank you. Wishing to speak in opposition. Jacob's uh sink.

All right. So, I had a speech prepared, but I think others put things a lot better than I could in a lot of different areas. So, I'll start with I live on Yukon. I bought an undeveloped property specifically for the character of the area, not to be surrounded by subdivisions. I wanted the farm aspect, the whole gamut. I built upon the land. I put money into the economy and created many local jobs. I contracted Idaho Fence for the fence. I got a local asphalt guy to do the asphalt. His brother sealed it recently. Um, so I bought it for that reason. I could have lived anywhere, but I wanted the character of the land. So I would say, uh, ask, who does this council serve? The residents of your affected area or outside interests unrelated to your citizens? There's an unspoken contract between government and its citizens and as those being affected. It definitely counts here. Not potential citizens, but current citizens. What will they think if this is approved? And in turn, will these citizens reelect those who undermine them or even create new political opposition? Uh, I can say if the annex is approved, I'll provide time and money for political opposition. It'll be too late by then. It's why they want R2. They know it's going to generate a bunch of problems. Then you have to step in. They're going to be a lot bigger than what they're proposing to build. Once they get their foot in the door, it creates a feedback loop. You're going to lose control of growth. It's going to open the whole area up, which is what they want. As far as the pricing argument, it's clever. It ignores there's effectively infinite demand from outside the region. People want to live here because of the character. But the character only exists because you've done smart growth, controlled growth, careful growth. I'm not against growth, but it needs to be done the right place at the right time in a smart way.

So the homes that were built will remain unaffordable due to the asymmetry on the demand side. All you'll see is more problems related to growth and more people complaining about home prices. There's economic factors as well, but we won't get into that. For every one local, there's likely to be 10 more from outside the region who want to move in. As soon as the price drops, meets the bid comes in. As said, you know, it's only desirable because of the smart growth you've implemented. um price argument is not a good one. It could be used to justify anything. The good argument is whether this is the right growth at the right time in the right place or whether or not there's more suitable areas to develop first with the infrastructure in place, the plan that don't have this countless issues. Um you can get the growth in a better way. You can add jobs, the economy, address the prices um in a much smarter way. So I do think the goal is to open the area up for even more development. I predict if you do it, you'll lose control of growth. You'll have political problems. It'll spin out of control. The problems will be get more problems. Infrastructure comes in. That's justification for more building. You want to do it smart. Um so, you know, earlier this year, the council made a thoughtful decision to deny the Briner annexation at the same site. That was R1. Councelor Wesland said plainly, I don't see any immediate need of expanding the road. Councelor Stigler said site might be a future benefit. I don't see the need now. U people have already addressed the zoning issue. Um but R2 is four times larger, denser, and even more disruptive to the rural character of the area. So I'll close with remember who your citizens are. Those who chose to live in a wonderful place. It's only wonderful because you've done growth smartly. And if you know you value your your place in the community and all the rest of it, I would ask you to please make the smart

decision on this and your citizens will be happy and you know this the area and the city can prosper. Thank you. Thank you.

Right. Invite the applicant up for any rebuttal. Thank you, Commissioner Ray Kimmel again for the record. Um, I'm going to keep my rebuttal fairly short. Um, so to reiterate because there seems to be a lot of confusion out there that this is an R2 uh request for zoning with single family residential. um not apartments, not duplexes, not twin homes, detached single family residential. Um and and the reason for that is to very simply provide the opportunity for affordable housing. That doesn't happen um without annexation, without a a market that has a supply Whether that applies for people who are out of town uh who choose to come to live here or for someone who grew grew up here and didn't choose to live here um but may choose to want to stay here um our children, our grandchildren, and maybe even our great-grandchildren. With regards to the infrastructure, um I didn't touch on it because staff did, but I will touch on it. Uh sewer is in the street. It's 15 inches in diameter. It's adequate depth and capacity. Um it isn't it's in Meguire Road. And there is no long distance extension to get sewer to this property. Uh unlike many properties, as a matter of fact, even in that central island that we spoke about earlier, um there are sewer issues in that area because sewer kind of surrounds it but doesn't really go through it. Um,

with regards to water, it's an East Greenacres irrigation district and there are water manes in both Meguire. I think that's a 20 in in Meguire and there's an 8 in in Yukon and I think there's an 8 in in um in Pine which is adequate as well. Um, I find it interesting that the traffic collar group in always kind of baffles me a little bit because it's either there's so much traffic and the roads aren't big enough or uh we don't need it now because there's not enough traffic. And the reality is is that prior proper planning says that we have a we have a transportation master plan that we should be following and having the opportunity to get that land and then when the subdivision comes to get the road improvements. That includes widening the curb, the gutters, curb and gutter, sidewalk, swale, street trees, removing the power or relocating power poles. All of that lands on the developer, not the public. If you were to look at the consequences of not annexing, you can only you only have to look at the the Hughes property on on on Prairie Avenue where they came in for annexation. They requested annexation. it was denied and now Post Falls Highway District which all of us residents in Post Falls are members of and we pay taxes to has to purchase the right of way and build that that half of the road for Prairie Avenue um at at a price that they would have gotten it for free but because it wasn't annexed um the taxpayers get to pay for it and so that's important. Um, there is a big benefit to the city. It's a big benefit because we're

following the transportation master plan and it increases safety because we don't end up with congested roads because we're planning ahead of time. We're building ahead of time and this isn't a peace meal annexation. It's we put together multiple pieces of property on purpose. We have great difficulty to come to the city to come up to something where we get a quarter mile of of road just on just on Meguire. We get 670 ft or so on pole line of road infrastructure built. So first dedicated and then on the follow on subdivisions get built. It's incredibly important. Um and it's not peace meal. And of course with regard to the comprehensive plan R2 is an implementing zone um for the this area it's appropriate the single family designation um you know the the the local or the the uh the area plan the sub area plan speaks to that there should be higher density next to the arterials. and lower density as you move away. And so the R2 gives us slightly smaller lots, slightly more density, but really what it does is that it allows um for us to provide a need for the market that is almost mirrored across the street um to basically the exact same density that you see in Montrose. And it allows for an orderly growth in the city of Post Falls. Because if you ask where is a more appropriate place for the city of Post Falls to grow to produce the supply of housing, there is no more appropriate spot. You can't find a better spot. Um

where someone is willing to come into the city because that's the key, right? So no one's asking any of the people here, the neighbors to come in. No one's asking them to change what they do on their property. They still have the ability to to do what they want to do on their property. Um they have their property rights and no one's asking them to do anything different. Um my clients are asking to come into the city um because they want the ability um to receive city services and the zoning of R2 uh allowing for the followon development. And with that, I'll take any questions you may have. Was your question answered? And I guess

it was answered, but I'm going to say it again so everybody can hear it. Well, I guess my as long as this is like a clarification, we're not going in any kind of muddy waters. Hit your button. I'm sorry. If we could stick with what's already addressed and we don't introduce new stuff. He's already said it. I just want to reiterate it as he said. I mean, some people out here might, you know, they talk about apartments, duplexes. This is no duplexes, no apartments, no twin homes. I'm not saying I'm in favor of this whole thing, but just to let everybody know it, um, that's what the developer has said and his, uh, engineer. Correct. That is correct. That is what we were proposing.

Okay. Nothing other than that. I have a question, but I don't know if it would be you or one of you guys on two things on that. You I don't I think it was you said that they would be willing to do a restriction for single family. Yeah, single family single family detach is absolutely fine. So, could that would that be um then added in as items to be included to be considered by city council or how would or would it be done after it went to city council? That's an item we would stick in the annexation agreement. Okay. that. Yeah. Before it went to city council. Yeah. And the reason why we we draft and we get that after this meeting to go to city council

so we can prepare a base. Um and then when it goes to city council they have an opportunity to provide any other conditional conditions on that that would be amended to that agreement. Okay. Because I would like to see that done that it be restricted to detach single family. And then also I had a a question on the letter that came from the post falls um highway district. They had the original one had two condition things or two thoughts and um they ended up taking one off. But the part that's the annex of the portions of West Poleine Avenue and West Yukon Avenue um that the city annex those in also. Should that also be included?

That's typical protocol with annexations. We go across the street. So we would go to the north line of the pole line or the east side of Meguire. and then they had an issue with Yukon, but we met and talked with them. And at the end of the day, that's a solution that would be better handled at the time of development because the intent is from staff's perspective, from a safety's perspective, is to get Yukon away from that proximity to the railroad corridor as a it would be a safer um end for all. Okay. So that but the pole line and Yukon thing would be taken care of automatically. Yeah, that's a comment they made, but that's typical practice for us within the city when we bring in annexations. We go to the opposite side of the road.

Okay. And and to answer the question, our application, the legal description that we provided to the city for the application does go to the opposite side of the road. So, we anticipated that. Okay. Just one point of clarification. You've said uh made it clear on the R2, no duplexes, no apartments, none of that multif family stuff that we've heard a lot of the concerns about. Could you speak to the room on some clarification on single family detached? What exactly that means and what

Sure. Um single what does single family detached mean? What what that means is um if you were to drive down Pole line, go east on Meuire and go to the school. Uh, so go or excuse me, east east on pole line from Meguire

and you get to Grand Junction and you start going through the neighborhood and you see that those homes there, they're all on the 50 to 60 foot wide lots um that Greenstone is currently building. That is what that means. They're single family houses. They're not attached, meaning that there's no common walls. So, they're houses on their own lots. Um they meet the city setback standards. Um they meet the lot sizes meet the lot standards. Um so it from minimum lot sizes. All of that. Um that's what that means. It it's a it's a typical single family subdivision that you see in Post Falls. Um, and the difference from what it was the the prior annexation request, the Briner annexation versus today, um, is that this allows for 50 foot wide lots. Um, which is what a typical, if you will, starter home. Um, so most builders put their starter homes have a 40 foot wide product. Um, so they a 40 foot wide product would fit on a 50 foot wide lot when the six R1 has a 60 foot wide minimum which takes up an extra 10 ft essentially uh for their starter homes which can be which adds for a third car option which is kind of nice sometimes. But starter homes a lot of times just don't, you know, when you're looking at budget, that third car is is the uh it's the luxury item, not the uh not the thing that we're shooting for when it comes to

um the affordability part. So that allows us to get the slight increase in density which brings so the overall cost of the subdivision is essentially the same but there's more lots uh which brings overall cost per lot down which brings the overall price per lot down which brings overall price per home down.

Thank you. Thank you. Okay. Thank you.

All right. I will close out the hearing and we'll look at our review criteria and just just as a reminder for everybody, the review criteria we're looking at today is just what zone this could be if it is annexed into the city. We're it's a zoning recommendation that will go to city council at a future date. They will look at it based off the zoning recommendation tonight and then make a decision on if that zone is correct and if so, should it be annexed in. But tonight it's just the zone and it's just a recommendation. Um thank you commission. Uh before you tonight is the zone recommendation on initial zoning recommendation from the McGuire annexation 25-4 11 18.11 acres uh four separate parcels uh with a requested zoning by the applicant of R2. Uh so review criteria one is the proposed zoning district which is R2 consistent with the future land use map and the focused area contained in the currently adopted comprehensive plan. I think this is where so much confusion comes in as zoning planning and zoning commission were charged with following the comprehensive plan. And so this first question is does what does this proposal follow the comprehensive plan? The comprehensive plan's been in place since the current version of it has been in place since 2020. And this whole area is designated as transitional and the transitional zone uh R2 is one of the zones that can be put into that transitional area. That's my impression.

Yeah. I think for me these transitional areas always been a an issue for me just trying to figure out what exactly is supposed to go there. This whole area itself in the past we'll say 6 to 12 months there's been a lot of activity over there. Um some stuff that the planning commission has uh recommended has been denied. Other stuff has been changed by city council. Um it's very hard because it's just transitional to me. I initially looked at this and I said, "Well, R1 makes sense at one at one point. Do we get far enough away from Celt's then we need to go to single family." Um, but if we're going to go with R2, there's also benefits to that. It's a bigger plot of land. You'll get all the rightway improvements and roads and whatnot, but you do get these uh, we'll call them starter, attainable, affordable, however you want to call them, houses that everybody has been talking about, including the city council. And so, that is a benefit. But these are always very difficult decisions on what actually fits here because it says transitional, but it doesn't say transitional to what. It looks like it's right next to R1. Well, maybe it should be R1. But with R2, it does give you that option of a little bit smaller lot size to be able to make it maybe a little bit more attainable housing. And we're basically going from R1 at 6,500 uh yeah 6,500 square feet lot minimum to R2 at 4,000 ft lot minimum.

Any other thoughts?

Well, this transitional stuff here, this is this is a really hard one here. As you said, we're getting away from Seltis there. You know, we have some R2 down south of that. We're getting away to from Saltis going up into the um the Meadows area, which is um larger lots and stuff. Uh yes, we when we talk about starter homes, how can you call a $450,000 home a starter home? Um you have to have some money to buy those. Um, city council Randy and Nathan already said that this isn't the time for this. I think that they might go that way again on this. Uh, but I mean our duty today is just to go by this criteria and say does it meet the criteria? It's hard for us uh to to do this even though we might not want to do something else but today it's just the criteria and I would say it meets the f future land use.

Any thoughts?

I agree with what's been said. Um transition zones always seem to cause us some headache to try to figure out what the interpretation actually means. Um there's pluses and there's minuses to this. Um but I think it is important for us to consider projects like this and to look to create opportunities to do what we can to keep housing affordable for the younger generations for our children and grandchildren. Um, and I think in some ways this lines up because Maguire is a busier arterial. Um, if we're going to have a higher density, that's where it belongs. And as development continues west, um, that sets it up to be more R1. So, and there's lots of folks that moved into that area and don't want it to change. And I get that, too.

Yeah. So, um, it's a hard decision to to sit here and I think Bobb's got it. We've we gota we got to stick to this criteria. That's what we're charged here to do. Yeah. I was raised on that road. I don't want any of there. I was there from like 58. So, you can all go away, but we have to follow these rules. So, yeah. Okay. All right. Next criteria.

Thank you, commissioners. Uh number two, is the proposed zoning district consistent with the goals and policies contained in the uh comprehensive plan that which are relevant uh to the area under consideration. We're looking for little direction on any goals and policies that might be supportive or against the R2 zoning request. I think for me what jumped out um is going to be goal one policy 33 and 27. all those talk about the connectivity. You know, sidewalks will be put in, the roads will be widened, uh streets will be put in. Um while this is technically has a little piece, it's technically a county island that there is activity in and looks to be growing for the uh foreseeable future. So, it will provide that connectivity as things go farther west or as development on more commercial start over by Pleasant View and moves east. One plus I see in it that they're not asking for apartments.

I think we've all seen enough of that.

Okay. Thank you, commissioners. Uh finally, number three. Does the proposed excuse me of R2 create a demonstrable adverse impact upon the delivery of services by any political subdivision? No, there's been none indicated. Yeah, none. None identified. There were comments re received and and no adverse impacts were identified. So, I would agree with that criteria. Thank you.

Any more discussion? I I would u support the idea of adding depending on what direction we go adding a restriction or suggesting to city council to add a restriction that this is truly uh single family detached housing is in the R2 zone duplexes town houses are possible. Mhm. That's not what it's necessarily promoting, but I'd like to just add that as a limitation if if we're moving that direction. Could we do that? I mean, I know obviously that's going to be the just a recommendation.

Yeah. And and the applicant has said numerous times it's going to be single family and that'll be in the annexation agreement which will be the guiding if it if approved and go forward. But can we do it at this level? I I'm sorry I missed the first part of Commissioner Shrever's comments. just adding a limitation or what I talked about earlier making it single family detached I think

adding that as a recommendation to city council should they approve this so the normal process again when we forward annexation uh requests to the city council they're accompanied by a completed annexation agreement so that is an agreement by the annexing party if it goes to council so they have a completed agreement they can look at the terms so that would be included in this given that the applicant is willing to restrict the development of the property to single family detached residential only. So yes, um but we're not recommending annexation. We're only recommending you're recommending a zoning if it's annexed or subject to annexation.

You'll be recommending uh whatever zone you recommend subject to the council's annexation. And in the annexation agreement, the staff will include the restriction that we've talked about. Okay, that good. Any other comments?

Somebody like to make a motion? I can do it. Um, I move to recommend uh me and tell me if I'm making this right because these ones always confuse me a little bit. I move to recommend approval of the R2 zone for the Meuire annexation which is known as file number nx-25-4 uh with the proposed R2 zoning along with the recommendation to limit development to single family detached housing.

Good. All right. Have a motion on the floor. I second. And we have a second. Roll call, please. Shriber, yes. Will with heavy heart? Yes. Carrie? Yes. Stephenson? Yes. Walton? Yes. All right. Motion is approved and will be moved on to city council. All right. I want to take five. All right. We're going to take five minutes.

All right, we'll call the meeting back to order. Next item on the agenda is our next public hearing which is Gaul annexation file numbernx 25-1. We'll open that public hearing. Hello again commission. Uh once again my name is Justin Souder and now we have the Gaul annexation. The file number is ANNX-25-1. So the applicant is looking for the planning commission to forward a recommendation to the city council for a residential mixed zoning on approximately 7.76 acres as part of an annexation request into the city. Uh this one is also four separate parcels, but it's all under the same ownership this time. Um here is the project location on the southeast corner of Cecil Road and 16th Avenue. You can kind of see there's four different parcels here under the hatch marks. There's three large parcels and then one smaller one. And then here you can see the site is not currently within the city. It is in the county and it does not yet have a zoning designation. The properties to the north, south, and east are all within the county and contain single family homes. And the properties to the west are within the city and they are in the single family zone. And once again, the applicant is requesting a zone designation of residential mixed. The site is currently utilized for single family homes and some mobile homes. once again over the Wrath Drum Prairie aquifer. The water district at

this time would be Ross Point and the city would handle wastewater and we do the city does have capacity and willingness to serve at the requested zone and um density and then existing septic systems will be required to be abandoned uh and connected to the city sewer. Cecil Road and 16th Avenue are both classified as major collector roadways and additional rights of way and easements would need to be provided as part of the annexation and then road widening at the time of development. Here again are the Zo uh zone change review criteria. One is is the proposed zoning district consistent with the future land use map and focus area contained in the currently adopted postfalls comprehensive plan. So here we have uh the future land use designation of the subject property is medium density and the applicant is requesting a residential mixed zone. A mixed zone blending of commercial and residential may be considered in areas as they develop providing they feature high traffic volumes and are located and designed to function as pedestrianfriendly focal point of the surrounding neighborhood. The site is adjacent to properties with land use designation of medium density to the south and east. And then to the north and west, we have the low density designation. And then as you can see a little further south of the property, we have the business commercial designation that's on a few properties in the area. Guidance for growth in this area can be found in the comprehensive plan in the central island focus area. And uh once again, here's the site and it's an aerial this time so you can see some of the things that are going on. A particular challenge for this area has been the incorporation of county islands into the city limits. So the focus area

includes key policies to guide development um in this area including to promote infill, prioritize annexation opportunities, support development that provides pedestrian connectivity, and focus provisions for commercial uses along arterial or collector streets where traffic exceeds 4,000 trips per day. Annexation of this property may promote infill development while maintaining the general characteristic of the properties within the immediate vicinity and may also help facilitate better con better pedestrian connectivity as both Cecil Road and 16th Avenue would be improved at the time of development with sidewalk. Additionally, both Cecil and 16th are major collector roadways with anticipated traffic capacities between 4,000 and 12,000 vehicles per day. Traffic counts from 2023 show Cecil Road with an average daily traffic exceeding 4,000 trips per day. And uh traffic counts showing 16th Avenue exceeding 3,000 trips per day. This was done in 2023, so it should be noted that the construction of Highway 41 may have impacted some of those numbers. Um, and uh, looking at this project site, just wanted to point out some of the things that are in the area because it is immediately surrounded by single family homes, but there are several religious assemblies or churches in the area. And then you also have apartments further north and south along Cecil. And then here you are less than a mile away from both Highway 41 and Mullen Avenue which is a little further south and not shown in this screenshot. Here is a conceptual plan of what they intend to do. And as a reminder, this is just a concept. This is not being approved, but this is just an idea of what they may want to do with the property or I guess what they do intend

on doing with the property if it is approved. So they intend to develop the property with medium density residential and have a single family cottage home development and then have small amount of commercial on the northwest corner. And so that's represented in the red there. Um and that would be right on the southeast corner of Cecil and 16th. And then the areas here in yellow, the rest of the site basically would be for cottage homes. And then there would also be a private drive or maybe two private drives here on the site. So the target density uh would be consistent with the future land use designation of medium density as well as other homes in the immediate vicinity. And uh by providing a small amount of office or retail space, the applicant hopes to create an environment where residents can have easy access to retail services or entertainment or a convenience store, whatever the local small business opportunity may be. And it's something that could also possibly be a focal point for the neighborhood. As I mentioned, there's several churches in the area and apartments. So going on to the second review criteria which states is the proposed zoning district consistent with the goals and policies contained in the currently adopted postfalls comprehensive plan. Um the annexation request is consistent with goal one which again seeks to grow and sustain a balanced resilient economy for postfalls um and provide for fiscal health. The RM zone or residential mix zone can deliver attainable housing choices in the form of cottage homes and diversify the housing stock. Diversifying the housing stock may assist in sustaining a balanced and resilient economy. Policy two describes factors to be considered when applying a new zone and we've talked about several of these

already. So going into infrastructure, um sanitary sewer is located within 300 to 600 feet of the eastern boundary of the project site. Um at the intersection of 16th Avenue and Tanzanite Street and then the other would be located at Lapis Avenue and Cecil Road, that intersection. The sewer flow would discharge to the Third Avenue lift station which has capacity for the requested zone and it is in conformance with the city's water reclamation master plan. As far as traffic, Cecil Road and 16th Avenue are both classified as major collectors and are currently configured as two-lane roads. However, to accommodate projected traffic volumes up to the year 2035, both Cecil and 16th would require widening to the major collector configuration. The annexation is also consistent with goal 12 of the comprehensive plan which seeks to maintain the city of Postfall's long-term fiscal health and the proposed annexation could be considered an efficient and effective measure to providing housing closer to city provided infrastructure and services and neighborhood commercial may also add to fiscal health by providing opportunity for small business. The project is also consistent with policies 8 and nine which encourage infill development and annexation of county islands. The annexation and proposed reszone may help provide an opportunity to encourage infill development. And again, it's also in a county island. Um, and so in the county island, this would provide services infrastructure nearby and they're both and the site is within a mile of commercial services along Highway 41 and Mullen Avenue. The third and final review criteria, does the proposed zoning district create a demonstrable adverse impact on the delivery of services? And at this time,

there have been no demonstrable adverse impacts um provided at this time. Here's a list of the agencies that were notified and we received comments back from these five. All of them were either neutral, would coordinate at the time of development, or had no comments or no impacts essentially. Here's the review criteria once again. And then as always, just a reminder that this is a not an approval, but the applicant is looking for the planning commission to forward a recommended zoning designation of residential mixed to the city council for their consideration. That concludes my presentation. I'm available for questions and the applicant is here as well.

Questions? Yeah, my biggest question is the RM zone is really open-ended. So, I don't see or I'm not aware of any density maximum in the RM zone. through a since you can do twin homes, town homes, multifamily, almost any type of commercial, what is the maximum density?

It kind of works in the proportionality. You can have 10 up to 10% of the land be um like neighborhood commercial. You could have up to 20% of the land be designated towards multifamily. The rest can be forms of other forms of single family. That's where the bubble diagram comes in. And so we would craft the uh development agreement to be consistent with this diagram that they presented uh as being a medium density residential product and possibly with cottage homes with the commercial being generally located as presented on this screen here. Um,

so let's say this is the RN zone is put in place and they have a development agreement and they build out and I'm just being ridiculous here, but high-rise apartments on one little portion, the rest of the land is vacant. They sell the rest of the land off.

Is the rest of the land then tied to some extremely low density to make up for the high density? Once again, we're not too late. There's no base density that we're going this against. So, if 20% of this land, let's just say was approved and allowed could go to multif family. The rest of the land, the remaining um um 80 70%, whatever that may lie, would have to be in some forms of other residential product than multifamily. So, so if if 20% was 500 units because there's no maximum density on that 20% You're not getting 500 units though.

I know you're not, but do you see what I'm saying? Like I'm trying to figure out how to Yeah. At a 20, let's just at a, yeah, this is kind of getting a little obscure, but at a 20% of the land after you get rid of the parking, the storm water swell, you're only going to yield building footprint up to 20 to 25% of that being with structures because the rest of it's going to go towards open space, parking requirements, shade requirements, um, rightway dedications and whatnot. And so what that actual number would be I mean let's see let's what was the size of this annexation uh I already seven so you're looking at 10% of 1.5 would be 20 1.5 acres would be 20%.

So that's before you take out everything else and how high could you go on that? So maximum you're looking about 30 to 36 units probably based on what what sets that because we usually get between 18 to 25 dwelling units per acre on any apartment complex. And so if you have 1.5 you just multiply that by 1.5 and that's generally what we see when we have parking considerations other considerations height limitations. Yeah we do have the height limitations in the RM. Okay. it it I struggle with it because all of our other zones have like sure a set maximum density and this one is a little bit more floating. I'm just trying to understand

and the reason for the flexibility of this is once again it comes down to how do we create a mix zone that gives some flexibility to get some of the different variety of attainable housing because it wasn't that long ago all we had in Post Falls predominantly being built was your 6,500 square foot plus homes andor three-story apartments and so and then how do we encourage your off off corridor commercials And so one of the strategies that we developed as a city was to come up with this residential mixed which allowed the um ability for council to put the bootstraps on a development agreement and let's just say they don't want to have any multifamily on this you know or maybe after this hearing the um applicant decides we don't desire to do multif family and then they volunteer to put no multif family on it you know so it there's different ways after this hearing to to uh put some conditions or guardrails on it. And even at that,

it's like they wouldn't have to do commercial if they didn't want to. The zone allows it, but they don't have to. He was just saying the maximum height is 45 ft. So that's would be the like our three apartment projects that we have in Post Falls. The max height is 45 ft. So it's consistent with that. Okay. Thank you. And you guys can being a mix zone can propose conditions too to put on the development agreement as being a mix zone as a commission. What type of commercial is allowed? Um that there is um we have a bulk placement table. I couldn't I'm sorry I didn't have it. Yeah, we don't have and I don't have it memorized. But generally speaking, what's allowed in it

is more neighborhood friendly type commercials and type uses. those that are are a fringe like um was just shown to me like a bar, you know, that would be a special use permit. So if someone wanted to go put in a bar, they would come in and go because in some places it might make sense and other places it might not. And so well because I'm just wondering that's only like a couple blocks from from Walmart and all that there. So what I'm just commercial at this area. So commercials that probably be interested in this are ones that don't want to pay the high lease rate on a long corridor and they're like a subcom commercial. So the lease rates will be naturally probably less.

So you're going to look at more neighborhood center type service type uses that are going to be interested in that or potentially office uses at that location rather than large commercial or big commercial users. It's more like office medical kind of service. I mean that's a that's a neighborhood right in all corners you know like a dayare a daycare might go good there you know but there's no restrictions as to what they can put in there there's some there are I mean we don't I mean you're looking at I don't know if you can list a few there for photocess most medical yes

most retail don't have my thing almost all forms of retail are permitted by use.

So, so it's it's it's all contained uh commissioners in 1820. 030 and it's a land use table for the residential mix. Most quickly scanning through it, I mean there's a number of things that are permitted by right. Uh special uses include bread and bed and breakfast, room and boarding house. I don't know the difference. Um, some things are excluded. Uh, but it's hard to give you a quick list out of anything else. Like I said, photo processing booth is on there, but seems outdated. Most most like education type uses. I think the education uses are actually a special use permit. Uh, I did scroll down to that section. Um,

all education uses are permitted. Oh, they're permitted. I'm sorry. A coffee shop could be there. Yep. Little coffee hut, maybe. Ice cream. Yeah. Coffee and photo processing booth. Yeah. Bowling, skating rink. Those are permitted. You're not fit either one of them there. But the nursery and preschool, elementary school, middle school, and high school special uses um under that category. Um Okay. Thank you. Sorry. Like like I said, there's a there's a lot that would go through there, but there would be that additional review if they come back um from that section.

I was looking at the wrong call. Thank you. I have a question and it's probably more for the applicant. There is a lot of mobile homes and other development on that area. What's going to happen with all that stuff? Yeah, I do not know. I'll defer to the applicant on that. All right, fair enough. I did want to mention one more thing I forgot. We did receive a comment from the property owner just to the south of the site and uh they were requesting that the applicant install a 6ft vinyl fence along the entirety of the property line to maintain the rule setting as well as safety for new inhabitants of the lots. So I saw that I saw that that was a question for the applicant to make sure they're do that. But okay, thank you.

Any other questions? Okay, the applicant like to come up please.

Good evening. My name is uh Nick Edner. I'm a professional engineer with Ace Solutions in Post Falls. Uh first off, I want to say thanks to Justin and all the other uh staff at City Post Falls. Thanks for that uh that report. We appreciate it. Uh I just want to highlight a few things. We uh we are in general agreement with that report. But just want to highlight a few things. Uh first of all, the uh the G property, it's currently located in city in uh Kney County. It's uh just a little over 7 and 3/4 acres. Um in the county, one of the parcels is zoned high density. The other three are zoned a suburban. And uh we are proposing residential mixed. Um, as as mentioned, it uh it's at the intersection of 16th and Cecil and a little bit of a county island. We are touching some R2. That's that orange property uh down there at at Selena. And we're also close to some R1 and and other R2s. And then out at 41 is is some higher density. Uh there's some commercial. Uh and it's also like like he said less than a mile from 41 and less than a mile from Mullen Avenue as well. Uh so I I did want to highlight the residential mix because uh like you I have not seen it all that often. Uh we're seeking a density roughly equal to the R2 density at the residential section and then the uh the commercials not to exceed 10%. Um, some of the possible uses were retail, convenience store, daycare, gym. Um, some of the things that aren't allowed is a gas station, department stores, fast food. Um, some of these little higher uses of commercial are not allowed specifically and other ones are as we just talked about. Uh and then on the residential side, they want to uh at at the moment at least uh they want to go for more cottage homes, which are a smaller

smaller home. Um not necessarily single level, but um often they are. And uh and there's some restrictions on that in terms of where they whether they can front the road or they're on the back of the road and alley and all that stuff. It's a little bit of a uh it's not unusual, but it's a it's a different um different sort of use for for residents than than you might typically see. And as uh city presented, we have our conceptual layout. Mine doesn't have all the nice colors that they put on there. Appreciate them for doing that. Uh but yeah, up in that uh northwest corner is kind of where we would put our commercial. Um and yeah, not to exceed 10%. And then the rest of it at the moment we we have just residential mixed. Uh we don't really have any um need for high density um residential at the moment. Um and so so yeah, we just kind of want to put uh R2 cottage homes everywhere else. Uh as uh as mentioned, but again I want to highlight uh some of the frontage improvements. we will be uh most likely required to widen Cecil and 16th Avenue in terms of looking at the right of way versus what's there right now. And then we'll add swailes and a 5-ft sidewalk on along both of those streets uh which will provide some connectivity. Now, obviously with it being a bit of a county island, it will kind of just end there, but uh but in the future maybe it will be full connectivity all the way out to 41. Um yeah, and then again as mentioned um there's a couple different places we can connect to sewer. Uh there's there's actually a line in Selena Avenue down in the south uh southwest corner or southeast corner u that would require an easement. Um and also in Lapis Avenue that might be a little easier. Uh and then water from Ross Point. Uh there is

8 inch main at 16th and also at Cecil and Lapis. So those should be fairly easy to connect to. Um, and yeah, um, I actually asked the GS earlier about the existing tenants and they want to they're going to help them find a place to go while while there is some construction. Um, there's some tenants that will probably be there whenever is whenever the cottage home is is constructed, they might uh they might be one of the ones to buy the houses. Um, sounds like there's been some long-term tenants. they want to try and help them, you know, if if possible, you know, find find a place to go. Um, and um, yeah. Um, and, you know, even if that means, you know, maybe maybe they they do the construction in certain phases to try and try and allow, you know, okay, some of you going to have to move, we'll build some houses, some of you have to move, we'll build some other houses. However that works, they're going to they want to try and work that out. U, but yeah, uh, thank you for your time and, uh, any questions or comments? I have a question. You mentioned something about some trailers on that property,

mo mobile homes. There's a whole there's a whole bunch of stuff. Isn't there special rules with that that for the little trailer parks long-term notice you got to give them?

I believe so. Yes. Yeah. Um I don't know 100% if it's the city of Post Falls, but I know there were some laws passed. Yeah. Statewide laws passed regarding how much notice you have to give them. And I I believe if they were selling all the law land underneath them, they would have to there would be even more restrictions. Um but I believe, you know, I I'm sure there are some plenty of notice requirements that they fully intend to abide by, even if that means, you know, they're willing to put it off uh construction if that's what it means. We're not they're not having to get it going right away. I mean, it's none of our decision making here, but Right. It just kind of popped in my head.

Yeah. No. Did you see the uh or have you talked to the the resident at L South about the fence?

We did see the comment. I don't know that we've talked to that resident just yet. Um but uh but yeah, I don't think they would have any reservations about doing that if that was required. So yeah, any other questions. All righty. Thank you. Public testimony. All right. Not wishing to speak in favor, Anthony Bennett. More housing equals more affordability and improvement of infrastructure. Uh, wishing to speak in opposition. Patricia Murphy. Name for the record. You have four minutes. And I believe the timer is right there in front of you.

Good evening, commission. Thank you for um letting me speak on this issue. My name is Patricia Murphy. As stated earlier, I was born and raised here in Post Falls, Idaho. I grew up on Skyblue Drive. If the map was up again, I could point out where um I grew up and where my current house is. I'm retired active duty military. I brought my family back here. That was the intention when um I joined the military was not to retire, but in the end I did and I wanted to come back to my hometown. So I settled. I'm now caring for my senior parents who had to run my mom home quickly in between. Um they're also still on Sky Blue Drive. Um, I want to say that I'm opposed to both the annexation of the county property into the city of Post Falls, but also the the residential mixed residential zoning that they're proposing. Um, my most notable thing is I I care about affordable housing. I'm from the area. I want my kids to stay in the area. We need affordable housing, but this isn't how we do it by just throwing in mixed commercial with housing in no like a built established neighborhood where it is single family homes in that neighborhood. Some of it, yes, is like a higher density residential. Um, but this mixed commercial in the middle of everything. 16th has um seen a drastic increase since real life put their soccer fields there, the courts there, the church there. I've seen all of this happen over the years. The traffic on 16th and that specific intersection at 16th and Cecil is terrible. It's terrible already. They're talking about doing a peace meal project here where they're going to do a swale and there's

going to have a tiny little piece of a sidewalk, but there isn't sidewalks on 16th. There's bus stops on 16th where the kids have to walk right on the edge of the road to get to their bus stops and the bus drops them off and they have to walk on the edge of the road to get home and there's traffic flying down 16th. Now, it's not widened. This is going to add more traffic to 16th and none of that is taken into consideration when they're going to zone it mixed use or want it to be zoned mixed residential. Is that traffic on 16th for the kids? Um, and the big thing is it it is it's a residential neighborhood and it doesn't seem like there was much thought put into how they're going to make this work in the residential neighborhood. There's plenty of commercial property all around. Why do we have to suddenly insert it into a residential neighborhood that is single family homes? You can go just a little farther down on Cecil towards Walmart and you can put commercial properties and businesses. And I'm sure there's plenty of businesses that want to move here, but that's the place they should do it. Not in the middle of a residential neighborhood. Um, my time is almost up. I just appreciate being heard tonight and I really hope the commission takes this into account. Um it just we need more thought. We need more thought when we're planning the future of Post Falls, planning the future of the local area. Technically we're counting over there, but thank you.

Thank you. Did you have one more? Come on up. Uh, wishing to speak in favor procedures. Treva. Yeah. Ta. TVA.

Good evening. I'm Treva Gaul and um I just want to say that I've been a resident of that area since 1998. Prior to that time, we lived over on 2020 Westwind and coming from Montana and 20 acres on the river. We bought the place in the subdivision on Westwind and real life built our church right directly in front of our house. And so we saw a little old mobile and uh three and a half blocks down the road with two and a half acres. So we said, "Hey, here's a little piece of land that we can actually be on property." And so we purchased that after a lot of work to try to get it a loan worthy. And uh it was a dirt road and next thing you know, they wanted to pave our road and take our property to pave it. So they took our property and we paid to have the road paved. All the owners of that street did. And next thing you know, there was a white fence in front of us and a huge subdivision 15 acres across the road that was all empty. So um we bought the two and a half acres behind us thinking that we could get a little bit of space. So we got some space. Then we were a little bit still two in town. So we moved to Mullen um out on Mullen Trail east of Celane. um after our children were raised, we moved right back there and bought the two other pieces. And so um if the mobile home park that is there that is zoned highdensity residential, which means 38 units per acre, we're now in the county and that's what we could put up right now. 38 units per acre on that and it was zoned highdensity residential back before the 60s in um this area in the county, which is amazing. Anyway, we chose not to do that because we don't like apartments and we don't want highrises and that's not our goal at

all. Uh we're country folk and um we want small cottages. Uh we work for a lot of people. We have a tree service business that have large homes that want to move to smaller homes. So that was our outlook. Um we also thought we could have some dog grooming business, a coffee shop, maybe a little bakery, something like that. had our neighbor asked if they could do a ice cream shop. That was our goal for the commercial. Something small. We have right on the corner we have um one big church. I can't remember the name of it. North, not not north not north not north not north not north not north not north not north not north not north not north. Anyway and then on this corner we have another church and then we have real life down here and their commercial stuff. We have commercial all around us down um south of us. We have a different coffee shop. We have Papa Murphy's and that area there. So we're kind of in that area and the children coming from the high school walk down our street. So that's one of the ideas. So we don't want to go big. We just want to be able to retire by building small homes and making it comfortable rather than and all of the mobile homes were built well seven out of eight were built in the 60s and the 70s. So they're way ready to be taken care of and taken down. So, our goal is to make it look good, make the city proud, to be come into the city and clean it all up and make it nice. And um there are some sidewalks, and I know what she said about sidewalks is true. Um there was a tree fell that my husband just generously offered to clean up off the sidewalk just um west of us there on 16th where one of the bus stops is, and our sidewalk wouldn't join that yet, but it would be close. So, that would actually help the kids. So, my time is all almost up and I just kind of wanted to explain our position and our goals and our thoughts with that property that really needs to be houses because our horses don't survive there very well and nor do my milk cows. I have three milk

cows and six horses there. So, it's ready to become city. Thank you very much for your time. Thank you. The applicant like to come up for any rebuttal? Okay. No rebuttal. Close out the hearing and look at our review criteria.

Thank you, commissioners. Uh before you tonight is the Gaul annexation file 25-1 7.76 acres for must be four parcels uh requested residential mixed zone. Criteria number one is the proposed zoning district residential mix consistent with the future land use map and the focus area. I I wanted to clarify that I misspoke earlier when I was talking about the RM zone and the the commercial uses allowed. I was looking at the wrong column

on the land use table. So the uses that are allowed commercially in the RM zone are actually really limited. So there's only a few and it's very small, very like was mentioned, coffee shops, um that type of thing. So just to clarify.

Cool. And while we were listening to everyone speak, you know, just some quick math here, if we go by 70%, you're looking at 7 and 3/4 acres. you're looking at about five and a half acres of residential, possibly one and a half of of some other multif family, some other residential, and then, you know, less than an acre of commercial. And that's even before all the setbacks and roads and sidewalks and stuff. So, you're not talking a ton of uh commercial or even highdensity residential. I hope the if the cottage homes are done, you know, I I I think that's that's a nice we the idea of attainable housing keeps coming up in all of our meetings here it seems lately and a lot of uh other meetings outside that the city has with the pan what is it panhandle affordable housing association. So I think these would kind of fit really good in there. Um, and then it's it's infill development. So, that's another another big key there.

That'd be a lot better than 36 manufactured homes if that's approved for that right now per acre. Yeah. two acres. So I think uh when we're looking at the specific criteria here, the RM zone does meet the it is consistent with the future land use map and with the focus area for that specific pocket. One thing one thing commissioners is the future land use map designates it as medium density residential. It sounds like that is the requested uh density cap that they're looking at as well. Y

and uh I just note for agreement purposes um that the RM isn't implementing zone for that designation. Agreed. Agreed.

Uh thank you. Uh number two, is the proposed zoning district consistent with the goals and policies contained in the uh comprehensive plan? Uh for me, goal seven jumps out as the um ability to use the land for mixed uses. So obviously residential mix. You can use a variety of different uh zoning types in there to to fill in the lane. And then you got policy 8 is the uh infill development as I spoke to earlier. I think uh policy two because you're talking about compatibility with the surrounding land uses uh with the existing and future planned traffic patterns with infrastructure and existing service plans. I mean it's it's pretty consistent because everything around it is already built. One thing I was a little I don't know surprised or concerned about was the traffic counts that were reported.

If if Cecil's Maybe I'm just not thinking of it that way, but I drive Cecil fairly often. And I find it hard to believe that there's three cars a minute on Cecil 24 hours a day. That's a lot already. I'm just picturing that. Yeah. And if it is that high, Cecil handles a lot of traffic pretty darn well, especially on Sunday. Yeah. Or Thursday night. It's just interesting to me. So anyway, okay. Number three,

sorry. Thank you, commissioners. Uh number three is uh any uh demonstrable adverse impacts uh presented. There was none noted. Nothing's been identified. No. Thank you.

Any other comments? Commissioners, I might make one comment with the uh idea about the uh the fence that was brought up and it sounds like they're they may be agreeable to that. Anyways, I wouldn't necessarily include that in an annexation recommendation. Um that could happen at the development stage uh since we're allowed to at the subdivision level look at those uh as conditions for mitigating the adverse impacts upon neighboring developments. doesn't necessarily it's not as applicable at the annexation or even at our stage for the recommendation of the zoning. Sure.

And they and just for a clarification, the RM zone requires both an require annexation obviously, but it also requires a full development agreement regardless. Yep. Any other comments? Um, I I still I'm having a problem with the commercial use in that on that property. Um, just that it's so open-ended and it's a that's a neighborhood and I just I mean I just if there was like a a sea store put in there or something like that. Um, it's not allowed. Huh? It's not allowed. I thought it said that it was

I thought it said it specifically was not allowed. Are you looking for a convenience store? Is that what you asked? Yeah, I think they were prohibited, but I have to check. Oh, I'm sorry. Maybe I misunderstood. That's okay. Um, neighborhood shopping center is permitted.

Discount store is permitted. Sea store is permitted, but a convenience store with gas is not.

Yeah, I knew it was without gas. So yeah, I just Yeah, that that's my only issue with that zoning is that that's an open end. So, if I could assist in in if you're going to make a recommendation for the RM zone uh to council uh and consider it, you may suggest that included in the annexation agreement is a limited exclusion of commercial uses that are offending to the neighborhood or something else, not leaving so open-ended, but you know, don't put a slaughter house in there or anything else that's not permitted. If convenience store is one of those hot button items, I think you could make a recommendation that we approve the recommendation for the arm zone with the annexation agreement. We'd like to ex exclude the convenience store.

Yeah, I would just or something to that effect. Yeah. Or like a coffee shop that has constant traffic. I mean, that's a corner of a neighborhood. I I just, you know, whether I don't know how we could do that. And I could see like a daycare would probably be okay or something like that where there's limited people coming in, drop their kids off, and coming back. And it's hard to predict what the market would support or would and but I just I I can't support with it with open-ended on commercial. I mean, I have a real problem with that. So, and I don't know if there's something we could do or

I don't know. I think I I hear what you're saying. I almost I think it's might be premature to put any restrictions on it at this point. um being this is step one of 12 probably. Um but I hear what you're saying though I I think that would come up mostly in the development agreement itself. And that's going to be required. Can you restrict it late that far into the process?

If you're if you're if there was nothing council could find and be in a line with maybe they'd come up with a convenience store also. I would, you know, say part of the theory of the zoning district was getting people that live near an area not having to drive all the way to Mullen Avenue or over to Highway 41 that they can pick up daily needs closer to where they reside and not impact our controlled intersections at those major roads. And so just letting you know that's part of why it's an allowed use as a convenience store and why convenience store with that with gas was not. Oh yeah.

Because we felt like convenience store when we were going over the bulk and placement carries items that would help an individual with their daily needs. Yeah. Uh, and there's lots of places I could see that fitting, but this doesn't to me, this is not the place that something like that would fit when you're so close to so much other three blocks one direction, two blocks another direction just about, you know, to all that kind of access to commercial stuff.

I don't mind having a restriction on it. I mean, you guys are the commission and if council wants to approve that, then then so be it. then it becomes basically like a development agreement can serve as a like an augmented zoning district more or less. I wouldn't put I wouldn't put one on at this at this time. I think that's something that can be tackled later um after some more discussion, but that's but not from our

Well, and again, so the rights are vested at the time of annexation. I mean, these are valid concerns. I'm I'm not dismissing it. I'm just from the market perspective trying to say, okay, I'm going to condition your annexation on only putting a convenience store in there, you know, and that would be very difficult in the future for somebody to accept they didn't want to run a convenience store or if you're limiting it to certain uses or excluding certain uses that the market may

I mean, it it's it's it's the difference between attracting commercial uses that would actually make sense in that location versus bringing something that shouldn't be there, which I think is the design and the intent. ent of our land use table to have certain uses be special permitted uses and outright permitted uses. I'm I'm not saying I'm not trying to dismiss the concerns. It's just hard to predict what would be the appropriate fit there. If there's one or two items that certainly should not be there, um then maybe that would be appropriate to include in the in the annexation agreement, but I I don't know what they are sitting where I am today. Yeah.

Because I don't have the expertise. And if if the zoning currently allows a neighborhood shopping center and they build a neighborhood shopping center and one of those tenants happens to be a coffee shop, I don't I there's something like 200 uses here. We'd have to go through all of them and say these are the ones we want, these are the ones we don't want. And I don't think that's I think that's too complicated.

Just my thought. Okay. If there's no more comments, anybody like to make a motion? What if we made a motion that um we we move to approve we move to recommend approval and ask or recommend that city council review the allowable uses in that RM zone specific to this property and let them because they're going to make that decision anyways.

I think they're going to look at it anyways. Yeah. whether we call it out or not and and we can have that uh in the when we draft the the reason decision uh we can call out and just point it out to them. Uh don't know how they'll take it but say hey take a look at this and uh be aware of the potential uses uh to which that zoning recommendation would would allow. We can include that in there and just call it to their attention and say if you're going to annex it, be aware of these potential uses. I like that. That's fine with me. That work?

Right. Who would like to make the motion? Oh boy. You can do it. I can do it. You got it. You got it.

Okay. Here we go. Um, I'll move to recommend approval of the residential mixed zoning the G annexation file number ANX ANX-25-1 finding that the requested zoning meets the approval of criteria in the postfalls municip municipal code 18.20.10 10 0 as outlined in our deliberation and direct staff to prepare a zoning recommendation to be provided to city council that also addresses the commercial use concerns stated by this commission.

Sounds good. Fair enough. We have a motion on the floor. Okay. Second. And we have a second. Roll call, please. Shriber, yes. Walton. Yes, Harry. Yes. Stephenson, yes. Wilhham, yes. Motion will move on to city council. Next item on the agenda is administrative and staff reports. And there's none. All right. Um, next week's meeting on the 20th at 5:30, I will be here. Does anybody else want to be here? I can be here. I was planning to be here, too. I'll probably be here.

All right. And and commission, it's our intent meeting just to approve a couple reason decisions. Uh maybe one or two to try to get them punched through before the end of the year. It's it's just a timing issue. So, we appreciate the flexibility. Should be a short meeting hopefully. Yeah. And maybe we want to just reach out to Ray and Ross and if they want to attend via the phone, maybe give them a phone number. I mean, if there's five here, we don't really need them. But how about we just say it's an inerson meeting? I think that's easier than less confusion. And if they show up, they show up. Let's just make sure we got a quorum. Cool. All right. Thank you. All right. Any other uh commissioner comments?

Well, I think so. All right. Next motion is adjournment. All in favor? All right. Ajourned. Adios.