City Council - Regular Meeting

approved a few years ago and at the time they were MDR1. So the maximum they could put on there was the the two 12 unit ones on the south side and then a 12 and a six on the north. After they had platted it and started on the south ones, they decided to come in and ask for a zone change which they did and it was approved and it allowed them to now be able to build two 12 units on the north side of LA. So, that's what we're here for today is to present this in front of you. They have met with staff and they've met all the requirements that uh to uh develop this and take it up to the 12 on each one of those units. And so, we're presenting it to you uh with the recommendation for approval to city council. And these are condominiums. These are not just buildings. So, these are condo plats,

privately owned. Yes. Can you point that out where it is or Well, I see where it is, but and it used before we resed it, it was MDR1. How many? They had uh 18 on this side. Now they're going to 24. So, it's adding six units. The six. Yes. It it encompasses the whole thing and that's what we're amending. But this is the only side that it's affecting is just that one. So you see the 12 unit one kind of on the south side of this right here.

This one's a six unit. They will just make this a 12 to mirror exactly what this one's like. So that's the only change that you will see is from that.

Any questions? Okay. Erin, do you have any questions? No, I also do not have any

time by the time the staff does everything that they are doing. Okay. I I do want to ask this question. So, this doesn't show us where like the parking and things like that will be for this. Will it be similar to the south? If you will look at the the map that presented. I couldn't get it to pull up. Oh, the map shows they will have parking in the front of those units between it and the Yellowstone Highway. So, their parking will be to the west. It'll all be in here.

They also have some parking on this side that has not been put in yet. They're building uh 10 spaces on that side of the property, which will then make it so they meet the requirement. Okay. And all they have to do is be within 350 ft, I think, of those buildings to qualify as parking at a distance. So, okay. And then they're they go out into this other or do they go straight down to Ella? They will they will come right out here on Ella. It'll come out at the same just right into here. Okay. Into this area. Okay. So, how many of the units out there are condominiums? Are they all of them? All of them are in the end there'll be 48 total.

So, this won't come up for

Okay, great. Any other questions? Guess we're ready for a motion. Here's a copy of the I had to search in the right spot. Oh, there we go.

That will show you what is going to be You can see where the parking clear up into here in front of those buildings. And this shows the 12 unit being built and then with access coming out onto Ella Lane. And then from there they can access onto Yellowstone Highway. And then the same on the south side. Same on the south side. Southside's already built. So that one's functioning and and they are either sold or rented. I'm not sure which, but they have the option of doing either in that situation.

What has the traffic study shown where that's so close to the intersection? Their traffic study says they've met the requirements and they've also because that's highway 33. Yeah. They have to get approval from the state. Okay. And all of that, they have the permits and everything from the state to to meet their requirements also. So, it didn't increase it enough that it caused a problem. No, they're they're good with the way it is. They have no problem with it. And that's we make sure that we have that permit number before we even let them move forward. And

I think the I remember right, sidewalk and everything's already built out on Yellowstone. So, it's just a matter of building the buildings and the parking lots and landscaping. Everything else is in place. Well, I'll make a motion that we recommend to city council the approval of this plat amendment for Yellowstone Heights condominium. Uh it uh as it's met all the requirements uh for staff and uh continues to fit within the comprehensive plan as current exists currently exists.

I'll second that. Okay. Um, we have a motion and it's been seconded. Um, do we have any further discussion? Okay. All in favor? I I Any opposed? Okay, we will recommend that to them. So, what's happened to the talk about, you know, building a crossroad over to Second East? It's still there. It's still drawn in. If we go back to the parcel map when you scroll out a little bit. Yeah, there. This is the one that will be built across right

up here at Thompson Farms. Right now, there's no development going on here which has driven this road to be built and there really hasn't been enough drive. Um, they had a challenge with one of the people at uh I Idaho Department of Transportation They tried to negotiate this and be able to take that across there and the one guy says you take over 33 and we'll let you do it and they basically says no we can't afford to take over 33 so that kind of left it at a standstill and it hasn't been pursued from that point on railroad there is and I think the crossing alone costs a half a million dollars let alone the stoplight and the streets

uh the approval wouldn't be as hard is the cost because that cost would fall upon either the developer or the city to put that in. So, that's going to require a lot more money or some grants or something to help us to be able to do that. Or you can also look at urban renewal to be able to step in there and help on some of that. As uh Thompson Farms builds out, uh there's a lot looking at going in there. They're they're talking now finishing out the other buildings. They're also looking at bringing in uh some of the other parts of this. Uh you have this plat that you guys approved. They're looking at putting in that's like 168. So what are we going to do to second east?

Well, that's that's the challenge. So congested. We're going to have to find ways to alleviate some of that. The nice part is is people on this side, they can come up here and they'll be able to get to a lot of this. without having to come back over to Second East. It doesn't cure everything, but it alleviates a little bit in that same breath. And it all depends on what you put out there because people still got to get to the other amenities within the city and that takes them back down second east of Main Street

in there. So, um, anticipated at this point, Home Depot is still tentatively scheduled to start this spring. Uh Windco tentatively planned to start this spring. So both of those constructions could should start here fairly soon uh before Home Depot does. So you'll see the plat for that one. Is it Olive Garden that's staked out on University Now? They're actually digging and building. But is that that's what the next 20th of this? Yes. Yeah. So they are under construction right now. Um They're out on University.

Oh, you have WCO going in. And then Home Depot. There is talk of a restaurant. We haven't seen anything specific. This is where Olive Garden is going. McDonald's. McDonald's is right here. That little plaza. This is uh Cafe Zupas. This is Chipotle. This is those eight different units with all different types of food. Jersey Mike, Zeppies, Dorsa, Wing Stop. Yeah, those are all going in there. So, that's happening. I tell you, if you don't drive around this town, it changes.

It's changing. City of council approved the cup last night for tractor supplies. So that one and they're going over by John Deere. So they're going to be right in here. School district has started on their groundskeeping building and then they're going to put a new administration somewhere on this frontage is their goal because I think they're out of the old junior high in June. So on 12th it'll be it'll be on 12th. What is the digging west of the seminary building? That's the new grounds keeping building. They actually have the steel stood on that one. So, it's going up quite fast.

University Boulevard. Okay. The county is getting ready to start building this road. Uh we visited with them and they have on track to build that one this year. This summer. This summer. They're hoping to get it to the point where they can pave it also. So, it would be complete. Well, that's why they didn't build. That's why I think they ran out. Yeah. So, that one's going on. I think our next meeting, we have you guys scheduled for the 1st of April, April Fool's Day.

We have a work meeting that we're going to go over some changes in the different zones, residential, and then uh some parking changes. What was the third one? Comprehensive plan. Comprehensive plan. And that one relates to the zone changes and stuff is what it does. So then we have a zone change the next.

Then you have a zone change. Yes. On the second. So that's what's coming up here right away. We have a few more plats that are working your way. We have u annexation that is coming up. Basic American. We are getting ready to annex them this year. So we announced that to city council last night so they were aware of it. And it's it was an agreed upon when they put that stoplight in the city contributed funds urban renewal did and there was a block grant or something that came in I don't know the type but in that agreement they says in five years we will allow you to annex us into the city. So we delayed that one year because we negotiated some different stuff for the new sewer line but now the time's up and we want to bring that in. So that'll make a big change on that end of town. I think it's close to 400 acres total. But that plant alone, the addition was over $110 million.

So that'll be a huge boost in tax revenue.

That's a lot of sewage. They have a 105 year plan that they are working on. This year they're working on the headworks to the sewage plant. That's where all the stuff comes in. It was in that was their bottleneck at this point. So that one I think they've even started on it and then they have other stuff scheduled right just one right after another to keep meeting those needs as we grow. Explain the impact that developers.

Yeah. as a as a developer comes into the city, he will pay impact fees on sewer, on water, on roads, on parks, depending on if you're residential or commercial. Then they have one on fire and they have one on uh police. And so all of those impact fees, they're coming in and going, "Okay, this is what you're going to cause the impact on our sewer plant or our water plant. Here's the fees you're going to pay." Some of these get up into the three, four, $500,000 uh that they have to pay and that money is set aside then for future improvements and things that are coming down the road. So that burden doesn't continually fall on the the taxpayer every single time.

Yeah. Yeah. There was only two cities in the state that did but now there's a lot of so we were one of the first. Now, one of the things keep in mind the state's trying to stop there's a group that's trying to stop those so that we can no longer do that. Well, people like it, but at least the developers would have to. because then the only other option is you come in and have to raise the tax for everybody which would take a that would have to go to a vote to be able to or you bond for every project

and take it out long term and this just makes it so that developers pay in that additional impact on the city and their share. I know the car washes some of those are like $300,000 for each one of those car wash and impact fees. Student housing does a lot because they put a lot of impact on the roads and on our sewer and water. They do that way too. But like with the car washes, I mean, the water, you know, it's unbelievable. They're they're getting better. A lot of them recycle it to a certain point, but there's a point where they finally have to get new water. Yeah.

Last I heard is that city water is not It is not. How many where are there other places in the world? Well, not even close to us. There aren't other places. It's pretty rare. Uh a city of our size. Most of the smaller cities are all still running on untreated, but uh when you start getting into that 30, 40, 50,000, most of them have had to gone to some type of treatment. A lot of them will do UV. Uh they've tried that now. It's difficult to do in large volume where they just shoot uh ultraviolet light through it and it will kill organisms. Hope we have pure water.

That's key still. He says, "I don't want to be the guy that has to start chlorinating because he says everybody's going to hate me the day that happens." But there's there's plans. Keith and Em are constantly doing forward uh studies to see where are we at with our water, when are we going to have to add more wells, and with what's happening with our water in the state of Idaho, that's a more of a challenge than it's ever been because you used to just call up the state, you know, and just say, "We need another well. It's going to pull this many cubic feet per second. Handed you a permit." You drill it. Now, we have to go find that water from somebody else. So, we have to find a farmer or somebody that's willing to sell us their groundwater rights to be able to drill that well.

Don't the people that buy the farms develop those water rights to the city for that? They do, but a lot of those are surface water and surface water cannot be used for groundwater and so there's a difference. Storage water. No, we're those those are the surface water rights. you can get them and they'll let you do some recharge. So, you're talking about deep well.

I'm talking deep well. Yeah. So, we're usually going up on the hill and talking to farmers and there are other areas within the state that they actually will sell off some of that as development happens because then they don't need it. But, uh most of our farming where those deep wells are, we're not developing. And so, you're not getting those water rights to move that forward because we need to buy a farm up on the bench. It's happened. I remember in Vegas. They came in at one point and paid this small farmer $26 million for his property and then gave him the land back. All they took was the water rights because he had a set of springs on that and it was worth that much to the city of Las Vegas to have those water rights.

Uh you know what they paid him? He didn't care. So you don't see a new sewage plant needed anytime soon yet? Expansion. Yes. expansion, yes, but not like a second plant. No, we have enough capacity and room out there. We could go three and four times bigger than we currently are and still meet the needs. So, that's good. Yeah, they have acres. They used to have a whole bunch of ponds. Yes. That they put it in. They closed all of that and put it in through a treatment plant. Okay. So, in the future, they just keep expanding that plant to meet those needs. Okay. So, we're good. We're good that way.

Isn't that a quite a sophisticated system? There's more sophisticated. I mean, it's it's one of the more sophisticated in the area, but there's new ones coming in now that are you spend 100, $200 million on some of these new plants, and they they really treat it well and come out that way. Keith and them are always putting the new technology in, and this some of this still happens, but then they can add those other components to upgrade as they need to. they did. And it's it's one of those it's a continual process. You're always adding, updating, or repairing and putting those back in.

So, anyways, yeah, I did have one thing I wanted to visit with you about. We have four people that are coming up very close on the end of their second term, and we are requesting that if you know people that would like to serve or that we could reach out to. We really do not want to lose you guys, but you have served long and faithfully and and we would like some opportunities to let somebody else do that. Um the ones we need are all within the city, so not impact area. Bruce will be the next one out in the impact area and he's got a couple of years. When's my June? I think you're June or July. Just Bruce

I've talked to Good. Just shoot them to me in a text, an email, whatever, and then we will reach out to them. We're reaching out to two or three right now. But there's four of you, three of you that are all in June and July. Sally, Randall, and Jim are three of them. Uh Erin is the other one. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I can't remember which one. Two of them are in June and two of them are in July. Yeah. And it's sneaking up on us fast. Oh yeah, that's true.

Seniority. Yeah.

We appreciate all you guys do. It's not always easy and it's not always fun, but you guys have done a good job and we we appreciate that. Sometimes these meetings are really these these are the piece of cake ones. Yeah. There are harder ones. The next one may not be because it's another Oh, it's a resone. It's a reszone and it's it's the Parkinson Steiner property. It's behind my house. Right behind Tammy's house.

So, that's the reason we have going out there. So, we have u five or six different uh changes within the code. We're breaking them into sections instead of dropping a whole bunch of them in front of you. We want you to be able to look through them and have time to understand them. Rather than sending you a hundred pages and say, "Okay, are you good with this?" Because I know how that is to try to get through. So, we're trying to break it down into smaller bite sizes. A lot easier that way. Okay, thank you. I guess we're

so I started We do a lot of