MERIDIAN -- Confusion over a planned development near Settlers Park in Meridian led to a heated debate at a recent meeting.
A developer wants to build 36 multi-family units near the northeast corner of the park.
On April 4, the group designing the project, Engineering Solutions, sent out a letter to 32 homeowners letting them know about a meeting to discuss the new development.
But someone made changes to the letter, adding the project would be low-income. It was then passed out to other people in the neighborhood. The changes can be seen in the fonts and the margin of the letters.
Becky McKay with Engineering Solutions says she is disappointed in the doctored letter.
Instead of 30 people showing up to the meeting, it was somewhere between 75 and 100, packed shoulder-to-shoulder in a small room.
"The attitude the people had was, this is low-income housing, and they were just infuriated, and we kept saying we didn't send the letter,” said McKay. “It's not low-income or subsidized housing, that's what they thought."
Marji Nordick lives near the proposed site and is one of the people that got the fabricated letter. She says the meeting could have been handled better.
"It was not taken well,” said Nordick. “It turned into a hostile environment. A couple men almost came to blows and they were asked to step out or police would be called."
The other big issue homeowners have with the project will be the impact it has on traffic and parking in the area.
On the weekends with the soccer, softball, football and baseball games there are a lot of people in this area and they fear this project will only make traffic worse.
McKay says the area can handle the extra traffic from the development, but the homeowners disagree.
The project is still in the planning phases.
Engineering Solutions came up with the design for the project that will be developed by David Alexander and Settlers Park LLC.
Engineering Solutions plans to hold another meeting at Meridian City Hall sometime later this month.
