Moscow City Council approved the Woodbury annexation, comp plan, rezone, planned unit development and plat. This will be north of Slonaker Drive, east of Arborcrest Road and south of Trail Road.
The passage of this motion did meet opposition from the public. The concerns that were raised were due to water conservation and traffic.
“-The recent planning and zoning hearing, the traffic study used is flawed,” Moscow citizen Paul Hendrix said. Hendrix lives on Slonaker and spoke out against the annexation. “The city’s own admission was using data from 2006 and 2017, that is hardly current data.”
Hendrix was one of many that raised concern about this issue. The concern would be that the impact of traffic on Mountain View Road when construction begins would not reflect the proper growth the city has seen.
The data that was used from 2006 was on D Street and Mountain View Road. Another source of data that was used was done in 2017 on F Street and Mountain View.
“Traditionally for intersection studies you would do a turning movement analysis, but we were in the middle of summer,” Deputy City Supervisor Bill Belknap said. “That would not be reflective of traffic patterns during the school year.”
The traffic impact analysis that was done used a 1% growth rate per year to have a baseline. During 2000-2020 the growth rate for Moscow was 0.89%.
There will be a 50% increase in traffic on portions of mountain view road. However, the City of Moscow’s engineering department recommends that the applicant be responsible for 50% of the construction cost. This will include installing curbing, sidewalks and roadway widening to connect the missing sidewalk segment on mountain view road.
The engineering department also recommends the applicant evaluate the need for a left turn lane onto Slonaker Drive. This is due to the slight distance Mountain View Road has after the ninety-degree turn that leads it to Slonaker.
“We want this to be a community thing,” Moscow citizen Ellen Johansen said. Johansen lives near Slonaker Drive who spoke against the annexation on traffic issues. “If you look where all the development has gone on in the last 10 years, it has been on the east side of Moscow. That’s more than a 1% growth.”
There was a failed motion proposed by Councilor Brandy Sullivan that was seconded by Councilor Anne Zabala of barricading Slonaker Drive till the first house is occupied. This was denied due to the possibility of added unnecessary work. Typically, a barricade will be taken down once the infrastructure work is done and the city recognizes the road.
One of the other concerns brought up was water conservation and how this development will affect that.
“I believe we are in a water crisis now and I’m here tonight to pause approval of land annexation and development of the Woodsbury developmentuntil we have concrete answers concerning the diminishing water supply.” Moscow citizen Megan Klemesrud said, who spoke against the annexation.
This sparked a conversation by Councilor Maureen Laflin from the Palouse Basin Aquifer Committee to give context on the current situation in Moscow.
“For decades and decades, it’s been known that the area that has been settled would have a water issue.” said Tyler Palmer, Moscow’s deputy city supervisor for Public Works and Services. “We don’t have an immediate water issue. We are not saying it’s day zero five years out. We got time to work on this.”
PBAC released a report in 2017 that gave four solutions to solve the water issue. Palmer stated that in the fall of 2022 there will be the draft of the final report that will narrow down their choices.
Laflin asked about the impact of Woodbury’s development on the current water supply and if it may impact the search for an alternative water supply.
“It will not impact the search for an alternative water supply,” Palmer said. We have had a decrease in the amount of water that we are using.”
This conversation was started from the beginning of the meeting about climate change and the Ready For 100 campaign.
“We are at zero hour,” Michael Jennings said. “We are at the point that we have no choice to act now to stop the planetary-scale climate change feedback systems.”
Jennings is an ecologist from Moscow who introduced and spoke about Moscow’s Ready For 100 campaign to have the city reach 100% clean energy. Jennings was invited to speak on climate change and introduce Devon Conway and Nicole Xiao of the Climate Justice League. CGL is a youth climate advocacy group that is based in Moscow.
“This is not a policy dispute that can be revisited some other day. We are at zero hour,” Jennings said. “Those who will be most seriously and perhaps permanently affected will be the next generation.”
Conway and Xiao are co-presidents of CJL and are presenting the Moscow Ready For 100 petitions. The Ready For 100 Club was originally started by The Sierra Club, which aims to get cities to make commitments to 100% clean energy usage.
“The campaign in Moscow has been ran since 2019 and wants Moscow to set the 100% clean energy goal by 2045,” said Conway.
“Moscow is more than willing to take the initiative, but unfortunately have been lagging behind our counterparts,” Xiao said. “In 2019, Boise passed Idaho’s first ever-ambitious clean energy goal for a city. Pledging 100% clean electricity by 2035.”
Xiao listed that Boise’s mayor will work with Idaho power to transition city operation electricity by 2023.
“It is not just Boise- Belview, Blain County, Pocatello and numerous other cities have made RF 100 or similar ambitious clean energy commitments,” Xiao said.
Both Xiao and Conway have stated that Moscow has completed its 20 by 20 initiative and net-zero carbon neutral goal by 2050, with an interim goal in 2030 to achieve 100% clean energy. Xiao talked about how Avista power has met with the Sustainable Environment Commission and the Climate Action Working Group about Avista’s goal of 100% clean energy by 2045.
CJL has gathered 400 signatures and 12 businesses have signed the RF 100 petition.
The final agenda that the council approved was a proposed traffic calming policy. This will allow a written request for a traffic calming device if 25% of the owners or residents sign the request within two blocks of the requested device.
Traffic calming devices are objects like speed limit signage, dynamic speed signs that display a message of a driver’s speed, on-street parking, landscaping/street trees, speed humps, roadway narrowing and chicanes.
The funding will be from capital funding or grant funding. The initial device will begin with the lower-cost device and be escalated from there.
There will be five criteria, but only two will be needed to meet for approval.
Of these criteria will include traffic volumes exceeding 1,500 per day, traffic speeds exceeding 10 mph, accident history within five years, areas with high bicycle activity, greenway designation and other considerations.
If a city engineer deems a request does not meet the criteria, an appeal can be made to the city supervisor within 15 days. If a request is denied, no additional request can be made in the same location for three years.
Daniel V. Ramirez can be reached at [email protected] or Twitter @DVR_Tweets