The dust hasn’t settled on this controversial Meridian development. Here’s why
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Residents near a new Meridian subdivision raised complaints over dust and rooftop design.
- Developers defend modern homes and diverse housing offerings.
- City Council plans to explore dust-abatement plans and design-review process.
Update (Aug. 13, 2025): The Meridian City Council met Tuesday, Aug. 12, to discuss dust and design concerns about the Sagarra subdivision. The council plans to consider whether to ask developers to submit dust-abatement plans during the application process and whether the City Council could be more involved in design review, which is now handled by the planning staff. No decisive action was taken.
The original Aug. 8, 2025, story:
A few hundred feet from the idyllic tree-lined streets of the Paramount subdivision in Northwest Meridian, something unusual is in the works.
Jutting up from weed-spotted former farm fields, overlooking the Orchard Park library and Meridian’s Mormon temple, stands a new type of structure. The three-story home-in-progress is referred to by the new subdivision’s developers as a “duet” home. It boasts, or soon will: a rooftop deck, an elevator, and a shape-shifting ability to give off “the appearance of” four stories depending on where you’re standing, according to one Meridian official.
For some neighbors and officials, the structure is an eyesore — a reminder of tensions over plans for the development, called Sagarra, and newer concerns over its construction. For Tony Tseng, one of the subdivision’s developers, it’s a mark of innovation in an urbanizing city.
“We’re betting on it,” Tseng told the Idaho Statesman, gesturing up at the building, which will be eventually joined by dozens of other homes, including traditional single-family homes, duplexes and town houses.
Now, two years after Tseng and co-developer Michael Slavin gained the hard-earned city approvals needed to make this bet, recent complaints over excessive dust and the duet’s rooftop structure have thrust the development back under scrutiny.
The Meridian City Council is expected to take up these concerns at a work session on Tuesday, Aug. 12.
NW Meridian development under fire from neighbors, City official
The planned Sagarra development sits on 17.5 acres of former agricultural land on West Orchard Park Drive near the southeast corner of Chinden Boulevard and Linder Road. It’s a residential component of the broader Orchard Park development, which includes WinCo and the library and is headed by Slavin.
Tseng, president of Boise’s L-3 Group, handed off development of Sagarra to Grandview Communities, though he remains involved with parts of Orchard Park. Grandview passed the building of 32 traditional single-family homes along the development’s south side to Pacific Lifestyle Homes, while Grandview will develop and build the remaining 107 residential units.
Grandview’s purview includes 51 units arranged in town houses with two to five units apiece, plus 56 of the duet homes, roughly half of which will have rooftop structures like the one now visible from Orchard Park Drive, according to Mason Verner, Grandview’s director of development.
The development neighbors Brighton’s Paramount subdivision, where residents have raised alarms over the past year about construction disturbances including dust, overgrown weeds, flooded sidewalks and alleged property damage along a fence line. At a City Council meeting on July 29, Council Member Liz Strader joined neighbors in the concerns and asked the city to consider “what remedies, if any, are available to us at this stage.”
Strader said the duet homes were “visually four stories” and did “not reflect (the City Council’s) vision and our intent” behind what was approved in 2023.
“Apparently, there’s some kind of a loophole in our code where they’re calling this like a rooftop pergola or a stair access, but it appears visually to be a complete additional fourth story,” Strader told the Statesman by phone. “Just from a common sense perspective, if you drive up in front of it, you’re like, ‘This is four stories.’”
Strader, who voted against the development when it was proposed, said height and aesthetic concerns were chief among those raised by council members at the time — Strader said some of the homes looked “like warehouses.” Another member called one of the conceptual designs “dog-ugly.”
“If you watch those two meetings, there is no way you would think that (four stories) would be acceptable to us, so I just don’t understand how that’s what we ended up with,” Strader said. “And I’m very frustrated by that.”
The height limitation under R-8 zoning is 35 feet, Strader said, but it’s unclear if rooftop structures count toward that height.
“Maybe the goal post got moved ... I don’t know,” Strader said. “I’m still not clear on exactly how this occurred.”
She said she proposed the meeting to consider any immediate or long-term remedies.
“It’s important, I think, for people coming out of meetings to approve applications, to have a good sense of what they’re going to see,” Strader said. “It doesn’t need to be perfect. I understand there are going to be changes, but this, to me, is a pretty big change.”
Strader told the Statesman in a text message that she’s been contacted by “at least half a dozen” residents about Sagarra, which lies in her district.
Developer says city knew about rooftops ‘from day one’
Tseng and Verner denied that plans changed, with or without the city’s knowledge.
“Everything’s built to the city standards,” Tseng said. “These are our entitlements ... then the builders have to enter to the city a permit set, and they can actually go through the permit, make changes to things, say, ‘You are permitted to build this.’
“And then throughout the build process, the inspectors come out and inspect it, seven, 10 times.”
Verner added that from his experience with Grandview, “The city’s been more involved in this project than any project I’ve typically worked on.” He said that’s partly because the development was approved as a “planned-unit development,” where the city allows smaller lots and with shorter setbacks.
The city, he said, has been aware of the design for the duets, including the rooftop access, “from day one.”
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“I get what you mean, though,” Tseng said, looking up at the duet. “If you stand right there, this looks like a four-story building. But, you know, it’s not that hard to drive around and see the other side.”
The planned-unit development has been another source of tension with neighbors and council members including Strader, who said she didn’t believe the proposal merited the looser regulations. Strader said in a text message that it is “very, very rare” for the city to grant this type of agreement.
Tseng said the agreement allowed Sagarra to have more diverse housing types, as well as more common and open space, in lieu of larger lots. To him, this is a selling point rather than a sore spot, especially for people with a “lock and go” lifestyle. “People like me, who are getting older — I don’t want to maintain a yard,” he said.
He believes the duets, along with the town houses, which transition into single-family homes along Paramount’s border, will offer something “unique” to the fast-growing city. He anticipates that residents will like being able to walk to the new and coming businesses at Orchard Park.
Tseng recalled a City Council member at one of the hearings telling him, “‘I just don’t think anyone’s gonna buy it.’
“I said, ‘Well, we do.’”
Neighbors lament construction dust, lack of oversight
Jenn Card, a Paramount resident whose home backs up to Sagarra, told the Statesman that since construction started over a year ago, she’s been dealing with dust staining her deck furniture and even seeping in through the windows.
“You clean your house, and you turn around and it’s dirty the same day,” she said at the July 29 City Council meeting.
For nine months, she estimated, dirt was piled up just beyond her backyard into a berm so high that workers would drive excavators on top of it, kicking up more dust. At one point, she said in an interview, some teenagers started camping on the berm. She said she had to call the police when one stared a campfire.
“I’ve heard stories ... in the neighborhood of kids having asthma that can’t go in their yard, because the dirt has been so bad,” she said.
Card said the construction site has been unkempt, with garbage, weeds she believes are long enough to be a fire hazard, and some sidewalk flooding along Orchard Park Drive. She said her fence was damaged during construction, costing her $4,000 for a replacement.
She said she’s been in touch with Tseng and on-site workers to ask them to use a water truck to calm the dust, but that it was still being used infrequently and, now that construction has entered a new phase, not at all.
Card said she and others tried reaching out to Meridian Code Enforcement, and a neighbor reached to the Idaho Department of Environmental Quality. According to an email obtained by the Statesman, DEQ instructed the neighbor that “The City of Meridian has jurisdiction over any construction occurring within their boundaries.”
“DEQ primarily regulates industrial sources and does not have the resources to regulate fugitive dust at development sites that fall under the jurisdiction of local municipalities,” the email said. “However, DEQ personnel did reach out to the developer to let them know that we received a fugitive dust complaint.”
An email from Meridian Mayor Robert Simison’s chief of staff, David Miles, obtained by the Statesman through a public-records request, contends that DEQ is “not correct.” The department, not the city, is responsible for air pollution, including dust, Miles’ email said.
According to Bill Nary, the city attorney, Meridian doesn’t have a dust ordinance. Nuisance complaints are hard to enforce, Nary told the Statesman, because they require indication of some amount of intent.
“We’re doing our best,” said Tseng by phone. “Every time I get a phone call, I call either the subcontractors who are doing the work or the project manager, probably both, to see what they can do to try their best to keep the dust down.”
That includes running the water truck, he said.
“I fully understand neighbors’ concern,” he said, adding that mitigation is difficult when the wind picks up.
But Tseng said the worst of the dust was during “horizontal development” including road-building, which ended roughly four months ago. Now, builders are working on building the homes themselves, which he said he hopes will be less dusty.
Meeting planned to address dust, design
Tuesday’s work session is scheduled to take place at 4:30 p.m. at Meridian City Hall. It is expected to include a discussion of “development impacts such as dust and noise, and the height of structures in the Sagarra subdivision,” according to the meeting packet.
Strader said she hopes to understand any potential “process breakdown” regarding the rooftop structures, as well as what tools the city has to enforce dust concerns, and if the city needs more.
“I’m interested in fixing problems,” she said. “My purpose of doing this is not to blame anyone at all. It’s just to understand, how can we do better, and what can we do here?”
This story was originally published August 8, 2025 at 2:21 PM.
