After three years, Meridian comprehensive plan approaches completion

The almost-finished comprehensive plan for the city of Meridian may receive approval from the city council on Dec. 17.

“Usually you look to get 10 years between comprehensive plan revisions,” said Caleb Hood, Meridian’s planning division manager. “We’ve done so much development since our 2012 comprehensive plan that we decided to talk to the community sooner.”

Meridian’s city government started talking about the need for a new comprehensive plan in January 2017. They began working on a revision in earnest 18 months ago, according to Hood. The city hired Logan Simpson, a planning firm out of Fort Collins, Colorado, to help with the project.

The city council considered the draft plan at its Nov. 26 meeting. They withheld final approval to incorporate some changes in response to citizen commentary.

“The council decided to make six small but important changes,” Hood told the Idaho Business Review.

Those changes included policy on rural estate lots and sample zoning. The new rural estate policy will allow a minimum of one acre lots next to five acres lots.

The sample zoning change will remove some language that caused confusion between zoning and housing density. “People saw the wording and equated density with a zone,” Hood explained. Part of the confusion arose because the wording referred to the future land use map (FLUM), which is included as part of every comprehensive plan under Idaho law.

“We recognized that these changes really need to occur on the city code side and not the comprehensive plan,” Hood remarked.

The other proposed changes were revisions to the FLUM. They include:

• Magic Bridge Area (Locust Grove/I-84/Eagle Road/Magic View)

The council directed a mixed use neighborhood (MU-N) designation for most of the Locust View Heights properties, with some commercial (COM) along Locust Grove Road and medium density residential (MDR) adjacent to the Woodbridge Subdivision. They proposed that designated office areas east of Locust View Heights, in the Magic View Subdivision, should be reclassified as MU-N with MDR around Woodbridge.

• El Gato – Black Cat – McDermott – Railroad Corridor

The steering committee (SC) recommended that a large portion of this area should have an industrial (IND) designation. Most of it is classified as low density residential (LDR) on the current FLUM. The city council recommended that there should be some IND north of the railroad tracks and west of the Purdham Drain. This is substantially less IND area than the SC or P&Z Commission recommended.

• Other FLUM change requests proposed by the city council:

1. Franklin Road, ¼ mile west of Cloverdale – change from mixed use regional (MU-R) to IND
2. Gemtone (Pine/Hickory area) – change from mixed use community (MU-C) to mixed use non-residential (MU-NR)
3. NEC Locust Grove/McMillan – change from  MU-N to COM
4. NWC Ustick/McDermott (SH-16) – change from mixed use interchange (MU-I) to MU-R

The FLUM is available online on the city’s website.

The Dec. 17 meeting at city hall is a continuation of the public hearing on the comprehensive plan. Depending on testimony at the meeting, the council may approve the plan or decide to continue the public hearing process.