Meridian is slipping on key long-term goals to keep up with growth
This story originally published on Feb. 27, 2005.
In August 2002, Meridian created a 10-year plan to limit school crowding and traffic congestion, create more options for housing and make new growth pay for itself.
Since then, some critics contend city leaders have done little to uphold those and other key values outlined in the comprehensive plan. The plan outlines six key values plus goals, objectives and actions for meeting them. City leaders, including Mayor Tammy de Weerd, insist the city is following that plan, and that growth brings stores, restaurants, coffee shops and movie theaters that generate higher tax revenue.
But an Idaho Statesman review reveals the city is not meeting several key values because it isn’t following some of the plan’s goals, objectives and actions.
With more people comes increasing traffic and a strain on city services such as sewer capacity. Schools are struggling to keep up with expanding enrollment, Meridian lags behind the national standard for park land, several miles of city roads are at or over capacity, and police and fire departments struggle to meet national standards for responding to emergencies.
Meanwhile, the city’s population is growing nearly five times faster than the state as a whole, and the city has not updated laws to match the plan’s intent. “There is no end in sight for the influx of people to the area ...” Meridian’s plan says. “Meridian must ensure that it can support its growing population economically.”
Here’s a look at some objectives, actions and values and how the city has performed:
Objective: Ensure facilities and services keep up with growth
Meridian’s growth boom started in the early 1990s. City leaders say their staff has worked hard to keep up with essential city services like sewer capacity and police coverage. But fire and police response times lag behind national standards, while sewer and water bills are increasing to help pay for added capacity .
Meridian’s annual growth rate was 12 percent between 1990 and 2004, when the city’s population grew from about 9,500 residents to about 50,000, according to the Community Planning Association of Southwest Idaho. The state as a whole grew an estimated average of 2.7 percent between 1990 and 2004, according to the Idaho Department of Commerce and Labor.
City Council President Shaun Wardle says the city is interested in controlling growth, “not necessarily limiting it.” And Meridian city staff say their mandate is to accommodate the growth as it comes, so it doesn’t go elsewhere.
“Growth in itself is not a bad thing for the community,” Wardle said. “Growth brings challenges, but it also brings business and new opportunities.”
Meridian is growing for a reason. People like the price and availability of housing and land, a historical, small-town feel and a popular school district, residents say. But some contend that any city growing so quickly cannot protect its residents’ quality of life.
Lester Korn, who lives south of Interstate 84 near Mountain View High School, said the hundreds of homes approved by the City Council each week contribute to street-choking traffic and a strain on city services.
“If the City Council wants to curtail growth, and the traffic, there needs to be some limit on how many houses are built. Period,” Korn said. “I just feel the development is going way too fast.”
On average, each new house adds three people to the city’s population and about 12 daily vehicle trips for a standard two-car family to roadways like Eagle Road that already are at, or over, capacity, according to regional planners.
Key Meridian roads already carry more cars than they’re designed for. For example, COMPASS data shows that seven miles of high-volume roads within Meridian city limits are over capacity — by 10 percent at Fairview Avenue east of Eagle Road, by 38 percent on Eagle Road at Interstate 84, and by 21 percent on Main Street at Franklin Road.
Scott Grapatin, a 15-year Meridian resident, said it used to take him five minutes to drive two miles from his work to home. These days, increased traffic has stretched that drive to 30 minutes.
“I knew of the expansion. But I didn’t realize how growth was going so fast,” said Grapatin, who helped craft the city’s comprehensive plan. “I don’t know exactly what the answer will be.”
Some impacts from growth are less conspicuous, such as longer response times for firefighters because the city is more spread out and Meridian has only three fire stations. Construction of a fourth is scheduled this year.
Meridian Joint Fire District averages 5 minutes 21 seconds to respond to a fire, Deputy Chief Bill Johnson said. The national standard calls for a 4-minute response 90 percent of the time, he said.
Meridian police don’t track their own response times. Ada County dispatchers say it takes Meridian police an average of 8.84 minutes to respond to any type of call. They respond in an average of 3.82 minutes to the most pressing emergencies, called “Code 3” calls.
Meridian Police Capt. John Overton said the national standard for high-level emergency calls is between 3 and 5 minutes. Meridian’s response times, however, “are starting to increase. We are nervous,” Overton said. “We are behind that standard from where we want to be.”
That’s because the department patrols a 32-square-mile area and has only one officer for every 6.4 square miles, he said. The department’s goal is to have an officer for every 3.55 square miles.
Other impacts directly hit residents’ pocketbooks. For example, the Public Works department is spending more than $14 million to double capacity at the sewer treatment plant, plus $6 million to expand sewer lines south of Interstate 84 to serve future growth. Public Works Director Brad Watson has estimated it will add just over $1 to the average monthly city utility bill to help pay for more staff and services.
Meridian also lags in providing park land for its growing population. In 2004, Meridian had about 2.3 acres of public recreation space per 1,000 residents. The national average is 8 to 10 acres per 1,000 residents. Boise has 3.7 acres of park land for every 1,000 residents, not including the Greenbelt and Foothills open space.
“It’s clear the rate of growth is taking its toll on public services, especially sewer and water, road capacity and emergency response times,” said Marya Morris , a senior research associate for the American Planning Association in Chicago .
Action: Update zoning ordinance, map to conform with comprehensive plan
Residents signed off on the plan to guide Meridian’s growth when it was adopted in August 2002. But 2 1/2 years later, the laws that would enforce it haven’t yet been updated.
Planning and Zoning Director Anna Borchers Canning said a group that includes citizens, city officials and a hired consultant is working on a final draft of revised city ordinances aimed at matching development rules with the city’s comprehensive plan. City staff has no timetable for when laws will be changed.
De Weerd said the updating process was delayed because the city lost its planning director and had a staff shortage when it pulled a regular planner up to temporarily fill the position.
A month after the comprehensive plan was adopted, Planning and Zoning Director Shari Stiles left the city. Meridian then appointed a full-time planner, Brad Hawkins-Clark, as the interim director. Canning was hired in late April 2003.
But De Weerd said even without “black-and-white” ordinances to back up the comprehensive plan, city officials and developers abide by the plan. That’s because land along the city’s edges must be annexed, giving the city leverage to require comprehensive plan conditions are met, she said.
“It gives us an opportunity,” she said. “Staff analyzes whether it relates to our comp plan regardless if there are supporting ordinances or not.”
The new ordinances will likely encourage multi-use developments aimed at reducing traffic and impacts on other essential services like sewer and police, city leaders say.
Value: Prevent school crowding, enhance education services
Meridian’s City Council approves hundreds of new home sites each week, which has strained the Meridian School District, the state’s largest, with about 29,000 students — 16 of the district’s 37 schools are over capacity. In 2004, Meridian schools got more crowded after district officials underestimated fall 2004 enrollment by 1,000 students.
District planners are preparing for the student population to more than double in the next 20 years. Later this year, the district will ask voters to approve a $90 million bond for new school construction and even more money to buy land for future schools.
Meridian city leaders say they are working to develop a better relationship with the school district. City staff are now involved with the school district’s facilities planning committee to identify the amount of land, buildings and money needed for school buildings. And De Weerd recently appointed former Meridian Schools Superintendent Christine Donnell to a vacant seat on the City Council.
Objective: Encourage development within city limits
“Meridian is experiencing growing pains as land traditionally used for agriculture is being turned over to new subdivisions, schools and businesses at a blistering rate,” Meridian’s plan says.
The plan also emphasizes using available land within city limits to protect farm land along the city’s edges, instead of only using farmland to build new homes.
But current city ordinances put more difficult and costly conditions on developing existing land in the city than on taking agricultural land and building new subdivisions with hundreds of homes on quarter-acre lots.
Grapatin, the resident who helped craft the city’s revised comprehensive plan, said he regrets the loss of Meridian’s “rural look,” agricultural land and a small-town feel as homes sprout up around the city’s perimeter.
De Weerd contends the land on Meridian’s fringes is intended to be turned into urban developments, and that Meridian is an “urban center.”
“The farm ground was assumed to be in transition the minute (the comprehensive plan) was adopted,” Canning adds.
Planning and Zoning Commissioner David Zaremba said Meridian can slow building of new subdivisions on open agricultural land along a city’s edge.
But, he said, for now it’s much easier for developers to get city approval to annex and build on open farm land.
Objective: Develop diverse housing types and income levels
The comprehensive plan calls for diverse housing types available to all income levels, from higher-density residential developments like townhouses and condominiums to larger, estate-type lots. Instead, the city approves mostly low- and medium-density subdivisions with three to four homes per acre.
De Weerd said city officials are trying to supply a variety of housing choices, including adding more homes on smaller lots, townhouses, apartments and condominiums.
Last year, City Council members approved nearly 3,000 new single-family home lots while approving 480 multi-family units.
Former City Councilwoman Cherie McCandless laments Meridian’s so-called “cookie-cutter” subdivisions that feature larger homes on quarter-acre lots. McCandless said she prefers mixed-use developments that contain homes, businesses and recreation.
“It cuts down on traffic and congestion and improves everybody’s quality of life in the city,” McCandless said.
De Weerd said the city’s revised ordinances will make it easier for developers to get different types of projects approved.
Zaremba said the group revising Meridian’s zoning ordinances is adding rules that encourage infill and multi-use developments.
“What we are trying to do is make that (type of development) more convenient, and at the same time not relax the rules on low-density housing,” Zaremba said.
This story was originally published August 25, 2005 at 5:49 PM.