HomeMy WebLinkAboutEconomic Advisory Board - Minutes - 02/15/2023Page | 1
02/15/23 – Minutes
Economic Advisory Board
REGULAR MEETING
Wednesday, February 15, 2023 – 4:00 PM
300 LaPorte Avenue, Council Information Center
1. CALL TO ORDER: 4:02 PM
2. ROLL CALL
a. Board Members Present –
• Denny Coleman
• Mike Colwell
• Thierry Dossou
• Erin Gray
• Mistene Nugent
• John Parks (Vice Chair)
• Braulio Rojas
• Richard Waal
• Renee Walkup (Chair)
b. Board Members Absent –
c. Staff Members Present –
• Jillian Fresa, Staff Liaison
• Shirley Peel, Councilmember, District 4
• Caroline Mitchell, Waste Reduction and Recycling Program Manager
• Sylvia Tatman-Burruss, Senior Project Manager
• Clay Frickey, Redevelopment Manager
• Ashley Kailburn, Senior Specialist, Economic Sustainability
d. Guest(s) –
• Bill Althouse
3. AGENDA REVIEW
4. CITIZEN PARTICIPATION
a. Bill Althouse – Bill is on the Fort Collins Energy Board and participates in
multiple other venues including committees, setting standards for the national
power grid, setting ASTM standards, a member of the Association of Energy
Engineers, Rocky Mountain Farmers Union, and the Chamber of Commerce.
He sees the transition to 100% renewable energy as the biggest economic
opportunity for Fort Collins. He is worried about businesses as well as that the
shift to 100% renewable energy is going to drive up rates. One of the reasons
the economy in Fort Collins has been so healthy is because Platte River gives
them the lowest rates in the state for the past 40 years. Technology has
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radically shifted, and he just got out of a seminar on the arrival of virtual
powerplants which means all of Fort Collin’s businesses can now come the
energy suppliers. The majority of the IRA money is tax credit for businesses
and residences to deploy energy resources. When aggregated together and
managed property, they can drive down rates to everyone in the City. Bill was
asking for collaboration between EAB and the Energy Board to go beyond just
the engineering and look at the economic impacts of turning the small
businesses into an energy producer. He believes the revenue they will get will
expand their businesses and allow for more hiring. It is an opportunity to
redirect a billion dollars that can build a central solar farm at Platte River or
could build on to every business in town to become a producer.
5. APPROVAL OF MINUTES
a. Board approved January Minutes
6. UNFINISHED BUSINESS
a. The Board went around and did introductions. New Board Members include
Erin Gray, Mike Colwell, and Richard Waal.
7. NEW BUSINESS
a. Waste Contracting Update
• The contract for single family trash, recycling, and compost is going in
front of Council next week. It aligns with many strategic plans in the
City and is a Council Priority. Right now, the City is operating in a
licensed system but looking towards a contracted system. 70% if
communities use a municipal or contracted system. This contract
would apply to single family homes and multifamily complexes with
seven or fewer units. It might apply to HOA’s that contract for trash
and recycling services now. This contracted service would affect 20%
of the current trash and recycling services in the City. Peer
communities with contracted residential services have confirmed that
once they adopted the contracted residential service, other haulers
remained active in their community and continued to provide
competitive proposals in the future competitive purchasing process,
and many have changed companies from contract to contract. The
first reading will take place on February 21st and the second reading
is scheduled for March 7th. The service and admin fees would begin
on September 30, 2024.
• There were three haulers that replied to the request for proposals,
Waste Management, Sweetman Sanitation, and Republic Services.
Republic’s proposal most closely aligned with the evaluation criteria
and the City then negotiated the contract. The contract aligns with
many City Council and Community goals including cost effective
pricing; equity; additional recycling and composting; increased safety;
reduce emissions; street maintenance savings of having fewer trucks
in neighborhoods; reduce greenhouse gas emissions; and high level
of customer service. The contract will include volume-based trash
service, recycling bundled in, yard trimming collecting from April -
November, and two bulky waste items pick up per year. Council will
consider ever other week or weekly service for recycling. Residents
will be able to opt out of yard trimming collection for a $5 savings.
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Food scrap collection will not be in this contract but can be amended
when that service becomes available. The carts will be City logo ’ed
carts and will remain at homes at the end of the contract. The
contract will last five years from the service start date.
• The contract includes enforcement ability including performance
standards and liquidated damages. These apply to customers when
the service wait time is over three minutes and resolution time is
more than one day. Missed pick ups for regular service or bulky item
pick up will result in one free month of service. Not delivering carts
within five businesses days will also result in one free month of
service. The City will have staff specifically focused on contract
monitoring and enforcement. The opt out fee will be $11.10/month
which is the XS trash cart service fee. Pricing will result in savings for
most households. A $1.35/month admin fee is included which will
support 2-4 FTE and program costs for the City’s role in the program
rollout and management; customer service; education and outreach;
and compliance. There would also be some code changes that
enable the contract service and admin fee. For HOA’s to continue
their own contract they must continue to meet the pay as you throw
requirements and match contract yard trimming service by the time
the City’s Service starts.
• Q (Mistene) Couple of questions. On the weekly vs biweekly
recycling from a citizen’s standpoint, I think it would depend on the
size of the bin we would have for that. We do biweekly recycling, and
we have a huge bin so it is fine to do that, but if we cut down to the
smaller one it would need to be more frequent.
• A (Caroline) The contract would have the default recycling
bin size be the large, 95-gallon bin. In the weekly scenario,
folks would have one of those and in the every two weeks
scenario, they would have the option to have up to tow of
those which is an option in our current program. If
households would prefer the 65-gallon or medium size
recycling bin, that is available for no additional charge. They
would just have to request it. The large bin would be the
default but the medium one would also be available.
• Q (Mistene) Is there a requirement in the contract that the provider
needs to accept online payments?
• A (Caroline) Yes.
• Q (Mistene) Overall, I think tonight is the first night we have seen the
pie chart where this is affecting 20%. I am assuming that assumption
has carried through for this entire analysis so the cost savings to the
city in terms of road maintenance and all that. Is that impacted by that
or is that the same assumption?
• A (Caroline) If you look at all the trash and recycling
business in the City of Fort Collins, the element that would
be impacted by this contract is 20% of that market so it is not
taking into account the street savings or cost of service.
Those are sort of separate pieces. There are a lot of folks
who very understandably get the feeling that the City is going
to contract out all the trash and recycling service in the whole
community. This is really trying to give context. Most people
see what they see on the day to day, and we see our
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household bin and we don’t really see all of the roll offs and
dumpsters behind businesses. Those are a really substantial
part of the trash and recycling industry. That is really trying to
clarify that there is a lot of community service that is not
impacted by this contract.
• Q (Mistene) I was surprised to see that small of a number.
My question is the savings that we have seen to this point in
terms of moving to a contract and the savings to the City’s
budget. Did that incorporate that this program would only
affect 20% of the service.
• A (Caroline) Yes, I think I misunderstood your question at
first. I apologize.
• Q (Mistene) I mean I knew the HOAs were not impacted and
so forth. Is there a plan to start to affect more of that?
• A (Caroline) Colorado state law does not allow City’s to
contract any of the other sectors, so multifamily, commercial,
and construction and demolition. Those are off the table due
to the state requirements in Colorado. Whether or not HOAs
that have contracts for service will be include in the City’s
contract or not really depends community to community. In
this project, the logic of the project team is that the HOAs
that already have contracts for service, they are already
achieving the goals intended by this project. As long as they
are meeting the City’s requirements for pay as you throw
pricing, it didn’t seem like there was a lot of value to try and
shift that system right now. A lot of the communities that do
include HOAs didn’t have those baseline requirements so
they end up in situations where the people in the City’s
contract may have pay as you throw pricing but the HOAs
don’t. That is one of the ways they try to equalize that out but
in Fort Collins since everyone would have the same playing
field, it seemed like a lot of the benefits were already being
achieved by those HOA systems.
• Q (Denny) Very good presentation and I applaud the City and staff
for thinking this through. I think it is moving in the right direction for
the City. My wife is a consumer of the news, if you want to call it that
from Next Door Neighbor and they seem to have an enormous
number of complaints about this particular hauler, Republic. My
question is did any of those complaints come through? Did you
analyze any of the current service complaints from any of the three
people who bid on the service? Secondly, my comment is that it
seems like your contract has adequate protections in it for those
things coming down and that they will be resolved quickly. I hope that
everyone stays on top of that. Is this just a social minority that
sometimes shows up in social media areas or did you pick up on any
of that in your analysis?
• A (Caroline) Well I don’t know if I am in a place to be able to
comment on the commenters on Next-door, but I can say
that the decision for which hauler we move forward with was
based purely on the criteria in the request for proposals that
was issued. One of those was a strong customer service and
so we were very clear in the request for proposals, and we
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had weighted customer service really high in the evaluation
criteria. The contract is set up to have really strong
requirements around customer service. I would say for the
proposals to be successful in that evaluation criteria had to
have a very strong customer service commitments and the
contract we wrote when talking about that compliance side
has very strict requirements with a lot of financial penalties to
the hauler if they don’t meet those requirements. That is
more of the area of focus that we used in determining. We
had to base our decision off the information in the proposals
but again we have very strong requirements with some pretty
strong teeth in them. We will have staff specifically dedicated
to enforcing those. I have been in this industry for a long
time, and I have never found a hauler that is universally
loved or hated. Just like everyone else, there is a mix of
opinions on matter which entity we pick.
• Q (Renee) Thank you so much for that presentation. I really enjoyed
how the information delivered has refined over the last few months.
My question has to do with recycling. When the haulers pick up
recycling, I guess they will be handling the separating. Does the
recycling criteria, for example #8 plastics stay the same as we have
been managing through currently?
• A (Caroline) Yes.
• Q (Erin) I have a greenhouse gas accounting question for you on a
weekly vs biweekly pick up for recycling. I will put it on the table that I
am still learning about how trash is handled in Fort Collins but I
imagine the trade off is something like having more trucks on the road
to pick up maybe not everyone is going to need that but there is an
environmental greenhouse gas benefit to having more recycling. I
was hoping you could explain how that is calculated exactly or what
are the tradeoffs there and having alternatives like educating
residents on how to recycle appropriately. I don’t know if that is an
issue here, but I have certainly lived in places where people don’t
always know what goes in recycling and some that ends up going to
the trash. Is there a way to just reduce what people aren’t recycling
through education.
• A (Caroline) It does, and I can tell you in generalities. I can
also open the document and tell you in specifics. There are
many factors in the world of recycling as you are talking
about the education. There are many ways to help improve
recycling and specifically when we are looking at the weekly
vs every other week recycling. As you absolutely already
identified the general trade off is the impact of having a truck
on the road every week instead of every other week. I think
you already had the equation right. You get more recycling,
but you also get more trucks on the road. I have only worked
in communities that have had every other week recycling for
the last 20 years and so I honestly hadn’t looked that much
into weekly recycling. There was a small hauler that had
been operating in the community called Timberline Hauling
that offered weekly recycling and when they went out of
business a number of their customers called me saying, hey
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we really liked that and where can we get that. They had
identified there was not a service option for that in the
community. So, we put it on the request for proposals but as
we talked about you have a whole second truck coming
every week. Generally, the norm would be that would cost a
lot more money for that sort of service so in that ratio of more
recycling to more impact, generally weekly recycling in the
past has not balanced out. I think there are a lot of
efficiencies from the hauler’s perspective from the routing of
just being able to have weekly service for both trash,
recycling, and yard trimmings. For whatever all the factors
are that fed into it for them, they offered a very affordable
service price for it. We have been digging more into those
details over the last few weeks to better understand the delta
between weekly and every other week recycling. I can tell
you that yes there is more greenhouse gas emissions and
more truck impacts from the additional truck on the road but
the greenhouse gas reductions from the additional recycling
are fairly substantial net benefit beyond those increase in the
impact. I can pull up the exact number if that would be
helpful for you, but you have the right elements on that teeter
totter if you will. Both diversion impact and the green house
gas reductions come out in the favor of weekly recycling.
• Q (Braulio) Thank you for the presentation. Two comments. One is
related to the provider. From personal experience, Republic
purchased a local operator, and the customer service quality was
changed dramatically, and I personally struggle. I don’t have to make
it universal, but I can tell you the local provider that we used to have
had higher standards of customer service compared to my
experiences right now. I think it makes sense because in the past
when you talk to customer service, you speak to a local person,
knowing what is going on. Now you call and it is a person, I don’t
know exactly where but my guess is in another state, and they are
really disconnected from what is happening. I don’t understand.
When you hire a provider, it is like a love relationship. You are getting
all the pretty things. We need to, and what I think you are doing, is
make sure that the customer service and service level agreements
are really there and going to be placed on the financial piece. After
you get engaged nobody wants to go through lawyers and get a
divorce. The other side was we are moving in this direction because
we are going to gain many things like less traffic and a big win was
supposed to be gas emissions. Is there a number, and it doesn’t have
to happen now, but we are taking this job from local providers and
giving it to national providers, but we are going to gain this reduction
in gas emissions. Is that information available or will it be available at
some point? I am trying to justify the trade if we are going to take
20% of business from local providers and give it to, in this case
Republic, which I don’t think is a local Colorado Company or from
Fort Collins. There is something that needs to be gained because we
are taking 20% of that business from local people and giving that to
people not necessarily tied to Fort Collins so the gain should be here
in the end.
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• A (Caroline) I wonder if I might be able to add a bit of
context in relationship to your comments. First of all, I really
appreciate your comments about it being similar to a love
relationship and everything looks so glow-y at the beginning,
but I am also an incredibly skeptical person who has been in
this industry for a long time. No matter who the prosper was
you may notice we don’t talk about the particular company in
our materials very much because we really framed this
program around what kind of program does Fort Collins
want. We were just working to find a provider that can work
into that program as opposed to vice versa. There are lots of
checks and balances in this contract. I want to also clarify
that within our current hauling market in Fort Collins, the
majority of the haulers are national haulers. Ram waste is
owned by Waste Connections. Waste Management is a
national company and then there is Republic which already
has a certain customer base in the Community, and they
would maintain that customer base. There is a shift for Ram
and Waste Management. There is also a small hauler from
Kansas City that had opened in Fort Collins called Mountain
High that started business this past May, and they are not
longer adding customers in Fort Collins. Just sort of a sense
for what the landscape is in the residential hauling business
in Fort Collins.
• Q (John) Thanks so much for that great presentation. I have a little
announcement for the Board but a side question for you. After your
presentations in April and June the Board made a comment that we
delivered to Council suggesting they move forward with it. That is the
main way we as a Board can influence Council. I am not sure to what
extent that letter had and influenced but they made the decision we
were hoping they would make. So that is something to keep in mind
for future conversations. I understand trash trucks are extremely
inefficient. They get like one to two miles per gallon, and they are
excellent candidates for electrification because they make so many
frequent stops. I am curious if that has been factored at all into the
conversation and if there are any goals in the future for the contracted
service to incorporate more electrified trucks just like the bus service
has started to include.
• A (Caroline) That is an amazing question. Thank you. There
are so many details in all of this. It is occurring to me that we
didn’t even have it in our slides, but that is one of the
benefits also that we were able to obtain in the proposed
contract. Having the purchasing power of the contracted
services allows for more of those advances in a faster
timeline. This proposal includes one electric truck on a pilot
basis. You are absolutely right that electrified trucks for the
trash industry make a ton of sense and also there are
glitches in them right now. They are still in the trying it out
phase but those do exist and have a lot of potential. We
have the commitment of one electric truck in the community
which I think will actually get here before the contracted
service even starts. I think they an get it here this fall. If that
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works great, then we have the possibility to seek grant
funding for additional trucks but there is another major win in
the sustainable vehicle front. Republic would essentially be
using half existing fleet and purchasing new the other half.
All the new vehicles they would purchase would run off
renewable natural gas which is kind of its own challenging
term but natural gas that comes from landfills as opposed to
virgin drilling. They are definitely far greater environmental
benefit than diesel trucks but not as good as electric trucks.
Electric trucks are not quite ready for the primetime yet. So,
the good news is we make really great sustainable vehicle
progress in the contracted program is the bottom line.
• Comment (Erin) I picture that as a slide along with the
option for food scraps and the composting. That seems like a
major win.
• Comment (Caroline) Unfortunately, food scraps is not
included now because we don’t have the facilities, but we did
talk about it with Republic, and they would be open to
collecting that material as soon as a destination for it can be
identified.
•
b. North College Update
• Current plans and projects for the North College corridor include
North College Max plan, mobile home park rezoning, land bank,
North Mason Street, Poudre River zone plan update, Powerhouse II,
Jerome Street station, North College marketplace, 24/7 shelter, Sit
and Stay Dog Bar, and Albertsons.
• The North College Max plan is going to council next week. It would
extend the Max bus route and transit services. Implementation would
be many years out. There is a mobile home park that is east of the
railroad tracks that is zoned for commercial right now. They have
been rezoning many of the mobile home parks to a mobile home only
zone so they can preserve some of that housing stock. The land bank
is about five acres of land saved for an affordable housing program.
The City buys the land and once development is complete around it,
they can sell that land at a discounted price to affordable housing
developers. The housing developed on that land will have to remain
affordable forever. North Mason Street will allow for business access
and be a safer area for bikes and pedestrians.
• Q (Renee) What is considered North Mason? What is the cross
street?
• A (Clay) North Mason Street doesn’t exist right now. Mason
Street stops at Cherry. It stops at the river. Basically, we
would create Mason Street north of the river. It wouldn’t
connect over the river. It would still be disconnected but
there would be that Mason Street presence on the north side
of town.
• Comment (Denny) I think it’s a dirt street.
• Comment (Clay) It is. There is no formal Mason Street north
of Hemlock. There is business access from Hickory to the
Bike Co-op and some of the other businesses but again, it is
pretty informal. It would be a formal street with better
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sidewalks, bike lanes, trees, and lawns, the whole thing.
• Presentation (Clay) Natural Areas is working on updating the
Poudre River zone plan which deals with how to maintain those
natural areas but also figure out what programming looks like in the
natural areas as well. There is tension between keeping an area
natural which is limiting the human interaction in those spaces, but
many people like to walk along the river or ponds etc. So, part of the
plan is balancing those different priorities. Powerhouse II is an
expansion of the CSU Powerhouse on the south side of the Poudre.
They want to build the second phase of their project at Vine and
College it will be about 150,000 square feet and include lab space
and more community-oriented spaces. They are doing some public
engagement around what that would look like. It would continue the
idea of the innovation district along Vine Drive. They should start
construction in about six months. Jerome Street station is land just
north of Powerhouse II. They just got approval to build over 100
townhomes. The 24/7 shelter is a proposed relation of the Denver
Rescued Mission. It will be going through the development review
process soon. It would allow them to expand as they have been out
of room for many years. They would be able to offer better service to
the unhouse and people that require their services. They would have
a lot of bed space and offer a lot of wraparound services to help them
live a more self-sufficient life.
• Q (Renee) Is that north of the Lyric?
• A (Clay) It is further north, north of Hickory Street and south
of the Bike Co-op. It would be closer to the bike Co-op than
the Lyric.
• Presentation (Clay) The North College Market Place is one of the
last pad sites for development In the North College Market P lace
which is at the north end of the King Soopers Parking lot. The
buildings are finished and opening soon. The Sit and Stay Dog Bar
will be a dog park but will have kennel space and a bar as well.
• Q (Mistene) Is that a big place then?
• A (Clay) It will be reasonably sized. I don’t know how big but
big enough for a bar, kennel space, and outdoor space to
hang out with your dogs.
• Presentation (Clay) The last one is Albertsons. They have a lease
agreement, but the building has been vacant. There is not
redevelopment insight which has crated many nuances. The City is
trying to see if something can happen there. They are now entrusted
in purchasing the site and want to do a couple of things there. They
have heard from the Spanish-speaking community in particular and
they don’t have a lot of resources for gathering spaces. They want to
get together and it is next to impossible to find a space that is
affordable. They have also heard from high school students in need
of tutoring and other afterschool programing. The concept of a
community hall could combine a lot of those services. There is also
three acres of parking, which they would not need so they have also
heard the desire for affordable housing and other retail spaces. The
idea is to redevelop that area to fill a lot of gaps in the community.
• Comment (Mistene) So the City is looking at purchase of that. I have
seen conversations around that domain and all sorts of things there.
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• Comment (Clay) Yeah, we were only able to get a hold of
the property in the last two weeks because it has been
difficult.
• Comment (Mistene) Yeah, I mean they are getting rent.
• Comment (Clay) That is the issue. I mean Albertsons keeps
cutting them a rent check that is well above market in today’s
real-estate world. The idea is that we would try to explore all
options to purchase. Our conversations with an investment
trust were positive, so we will see how we can work towards
that.
• Q (Mistene) I am curious where the budget comes form to
do that.
• A (Clay) We utilize half year financing, so we have 4 million
in cash right now and we expect 23 million by the end of
December.
• Q (John) I am curious about that comment. Why is Albertsons
continuing to pay rent on that property?
• A (Mistene) They have to. They have a lease.
• Q (John) That lease is indefinite?
• A (Clay) Until 2030
• Comment (Mistene) So if you own that property, you are not
motivated to do anything else with it.
• Comment (Clay) That is why nothing is happening there.
We can continue doing that until the lease is up in 2030 but
for me and I think a lot of the community, that’s just not
sensible. We are trying to find a way to resolve that.
• Q (Mistene) Any zoning changes you anticipate or are actively
doing?
• A (Clay) The only one is the mobile home park. The North
College Max plan has some recommendations for land use
and how to better support transit. Basically, we have a transit
orient development overlay zone which is an advance way to
say we have incentives for increasing density close to bus
routes and transit in other parts of the community. We
provide some incentives close to the Mason corridor. For
example, if you build something that is mixed use, has a
parking garage or affordable housing, you can get bonus
height in buildings in that corridor. We want to extend those
incentives to the North College corridor so that way we can
try to see denser development to support bus transit. We
might consider some things like that but that will be part of
the North College Max plan. Then without getting too much
into the code as it has been controversial, phase two of the
land development code deals with commercial areas and so
we have various tweaks to better achieve our goals.
• Q (Renee) Maybe you said it and I missed it but what kind of
timeframe are we looking at for most of these items?
• A (Clay) A lot of these items are short term. Longer term
items include the North College max plan and
implementation is several years in the future. We did a
similar process with the West Elizabeth corridor and we are
in the process of budling out the bus rapid corridor for West
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Elizabeth. That is our most highly used corridor in the
community. Once we get that up and running which will
probably take a few years, that is when we move to North
College and see what it will take to implement the Max
service in the North College corridor. That will be several
years down the road. I think Albertsons could go many ways
so it is difficult to say when that is going to go because it
could be that it is too rich for our blood, or we could get into
contract negotiations with the property owner which could
also delay things. So that is probably a more long-term thing
too. The rest of them are happening pretty quick. The other
one exception would be the North Mason corridor. It is going
to take a lot. One of the big things that have come up there is
there is an irrigation canal that runs through there that goes
all the way to Timnath and pulls water out of the river right
around where Madison Park is. It runs through where
Powerhouse II and Jerome Street Station are and continues
southeast. Long term its probably going to go away and so
we don’t want to build infrastructure that either goes above
or below it if we are going to yank it out anyway. That is what
we are trying to work through now is we want to build it at the
right time, so we are not having to redo anything. So that is
probably a few years down the road as well.
• Q (Mistene) Do you have to reclaim any properties to
actually make that work?
• A (Clay) The Mason Street Property, yeah not right away.
Our engineering department has identified properties to look
at. We have a small budget to acquire some of that.
• Q (Denny) I never really go to north college, but I was impressed with
the size of the mobile home area. There are some stick-built houses
in there that appear to be very affordable. Are those included in the
new zone area or not?
• Q (Clay) Are you talking about the stick bult homes off
Willox?
• A (Denny) I don’t know.
• A (Clay) I would have to look at exactly what homes you are
talking about. The only area we are focused on is the area
that have a land lease because all these mobile home parks
operate where the owners of the park don’t own the land
underneath them. People have very little control that is
where we will ensure everything.
• Presentation (Clay) The city has a comprehensive plan for the
community and has high level goals for Fort Collins. North College is
seen as a redevelopment opportunity and has been for a number of
years. In the early 90s it was very disconnected from the community,
but they wanted to keep that area affordable. In 2019 or 2020 they
adopted the Housing Strategic Plan. The City worked with
consultants to develop a gentrification analysis and two places that
popped out as in the middle of gentrification were in the North
College corridor. Some of that is because they invested a lot of
money in that area to see development but that has increased real
estate prices for businesses and community members.
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• Comment (Mistene) There is also a lot of land there. There is not a
lot of land within City limits.
• Comment (Clay) Yes, exactly.
• Presentation (Clay) We have an active modes plan that recently
went to City Council for adoption. Part of that included an analysis for
the 15-minute city which identified areas where people can walk or
bike within 15 minutes for their day-to-day needs. Whitin that analysis
they found areas that were good areas to focus on an equity
perspective that were not performing well but could and North
College was included in that. There is a lack of infrastructure in that
area which is a big barrier but that has started to change. They want
to continue that while ensuring people have affordable places to live.
The Max plan also identifies some improved bike and pedestrian
infrastructure, which will be going to Council next week. City staff will
also go to the Planning and Zoning Board next week for a
recommendation on the North College Mobile Home Rezoning.
Council will consider it in March.
• Q (Mike) More of a curiosity on the discussion on Albertsons; I have
heard discussion about a library up there. Is there any talk about
that?
• A (Clay) We have had some discussions. We know the
Library District master plan has an idea of some sort of north
branch. It is not necessarily a branch but would provide
library services to that portion of the community. It would be
more like a satellite branch since they have the Old Town
branch. One of their main focuses right now is the southeast
part of the community and figuring out a long term situation
for a library down there. As there is more residential
development in the east part of the community, there would
be a full service branch out there too. They do have some
desire for a presence in the North College community. We
talked about it a little but nothing formal at this point. That is
something community members mentioned too. It wouldn’t
surprise me if there was some library type service there.
• Q (John) I was curious about the Max line and why it hasn’t gone up
to North College and what the difficulty is in extending that. I imagine
it has something to do with making a similar corridor to the rest of it
on Mason that has it separate from the rest of traffic but can you go
into that?
• A (Clay) That is certainly part of the consideration. How
does a bus line actual work in the corridor? Why hasn’t it
gone up there, is a multipart answer. One is there is a good
ridership however, there is not a ton of residential up on
North College. We do know in the future there is going to be
a lot more residential in that corridor, so we are trying to get
ahead of that and plan for that growth so that way when it
happens, we are ready to provide that service as soon as we
can. There are two bus lines that run that way now; the 8
and 81. I think one is on Blue Spruce and heads down to
Redwood but anyway the big reason is there is not a huge
residential area, but it is growing so that is why we are doing
the planning. In terms of the physical solution, there is a plan
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that there will be a lane on North College Ave itself, so it
won’t be on North Mason and a separate guideway like we
have on the southern part of the community. There will
basically be a shared right turn lane and a bus lane
throughout the entire corridor. The other issue is how do you
turn a bus around. That was another big one that seems
simple but the big busses are really difficult to find the space
to turn around. In the interim, it will stop at Willox and then
turn around. Long term, the idea is to get it up to Highway 1
and the Poudre Valley Mobile Home Park. The busses
currently pull into the mobile home park and turn around, but
it is a mess, and it is really hard to turn back there during
busy times. That was one of the big considerations was just
how do you turn a bus around. The other thing that is
happening too is providing a north transit facility to service
vehicles. The service facility is currently at the very south
side of town and so long term Transfort wants a facility on
the north side of town. I don’t know if that is in the plans, but
that is another consideration of building another
maintenance facility to cut down on costs of just driving a
bus to the service.
• Comment (John) I wonder as a side bar on the North
College transit facility if you could talk to the State as well
because Bustang’s service center is in Golden, so they might
appreciate a center out there as well.
• Comment (Clay) I will pass that along, thank you.
• Q (Mistene) Are you hearing from the North Fort Collins Business
association and the plans up there?
• A (Clay) A lot of things they are happy about and generally
speaking, they support more density, more people and
businesses in that corridor. They support the Albertsons
discussion. They have been generally supportive, but they
have been concerned about plans to widen sidewalks for
multiuse paths for bikes and pedestrians. Right now bikes
are basically on the shoulder but we are trying to find a way
to get them on a shared path. We just put that infrastructure
out there not that long ago. That is going to require us to
widen the sidewalks. The shelter is also one they are
concerned about but it just depends on the topic. Generally
speaking, I think things are pretty positive and have been
going well. One the whole, happier than not.
• Q (Renee) What is going to happen to the current Mission on Linden?
Will that remain in use?
• A (Clay) They would relocate to that North College facility
once it is built. Once they vacate the property, I am not sure.
• Q (Mike) On North College, sort of west of the country club, is that
unincorporated Larimer County?
• A (Clay) Correct
• Q (Mike) Is there any discussion with Larimer County on the
uses along that stretch because it appears maybe some of
those are ready for some reinvestment too.
• A (Clay) Long term that area is in our road management
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area. Let’s say someone comes in and wants to develop
right on the edge of the City in Larimer County right now. We
have an intergovernmental agreement with Larimer County
that requires them to annex into the City. Let’s say it is not
bordering the City, then Larimer County has its own land use
code and standards. There has been discussion on what
development looks like in that corridor. Those properties are
not easy to develop for a lot of reasons but a big one is the
floodplain. There are a lot of floodplains in that area which
make development impossible. Also, in general the County
does not allow more urban land development than the City
does just on an economic perspective because a lot of those
issues. It will probably be some time for those properties to
redevelop and when they do it will likely be with the City and
if they are in Larimer County, then it will probably be a lower
level of intensity.
• Q (Braulio) What do you need from us to help you moving forward?
• A (Clay) I think something that would be helpful is thinking
about affordable spaces and what kind of businesses would
make sense in that corridor. I am curious what that could
look like and how the urban world could support small
businesses in that corridor. We have had that discussion in
the past of having some sort of program or especially during
the pandemic of how we can use some of the tax for small
businesses. I still think that concept make sense around the
smaller businesses in that corridor. So programs that might
have been successful elsewhere or if you are hearing from
businesses that have those needs; that would be extremely
helpful. That is what pops into my mind immediately but I will
think about it a little more and communicate with Jillian. I
think for more controversial items like Albertsons, just
showing support or not, voicing your opinion makes a
difference and Council listens to those types of things.
• Q (Braulio) I see one of the main challenges right now in
rezoning for example. I think it is positive. Is there a letter
that may help you at all?
• A (Clay) I think for that example particularly, yeah. I mean it
never hurts. The staff person is Ryan Mounce. Jillian and I
can work on getting that letter to the right person on any of
these topics.
• Q (Renee) For clarification, if I were driving north on College, where
does the City limit end?
• A (Clay) I am a big map person so let me get that pulled up.
See this Larimer Weld canal? That is the northern limit to the
City.
• Q (Renee) So what is up there? I am a big visual person. Is
that King Soopers?
• A (Clay) Exactly
• Q(Renee) So once you get to the Country Club, that is
County?
• A (Clay) That is correct. Generally speaking, there is a little
sliver north of that canal, but it is easy to use the canal.
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• Comment (Renee) Lots of potential for improvement in lots
of places. It is very useful to know what is going on. Thank
you for your presentation.
8. BOARD MEMBER REPORTS
a. Q (Mistene) – I have a question related to this possibility that the City is going
to ask for tax in the fall for budget cap.
• A (Jillian) I have that if the Board wants it for the March schedule.
• Comment (Mistene) I don’t know what is part of that agenda but it
would be great if we could get access to whatever the City Council’s
final priorities were for the year, that list of 30 or whatever, so we
could see what made the cut list and if there are dollars attached to
that and how it relates to that gap they are asking for.
• Comment (Renee) They don’t usually put dollars to it when they
prioritize.
• Comment (Renee) But theoretically there are dollars assigned to
them. I mean I guess what I am getting at is from a personal
standpoint it would be nice to understand what is being funded and
prioritized compared to what they are asking for so we can look at
maybe they are asking for things that should be prioritized.
• Q (John) So the full budget or just the amendments to the City
budget?
• A (Mistene) I don’t know how that all gets allocated. I guess what I
am asking is a couple of things. Some things I have learned clearly
certain in the terms of how our City does budget which you economic
developers might understand better but in Colorado, from my
understanding and I will get the terminology wrong, but basically even
the state does it but you have a general fund and City Council
decides how that gets divided out vs in some places you say every
year 10% is going to Parks and Recreation and this percent goes
here and there. We don’t have that. So, my understanding some of
the challenges we are facing with the gaps is that those have been
pushed below the priority line because they are not forced to be
funded. It appears we are getting a request to fund things that are
critically important but then the question is why are they there. Why
are we getting incremental requests for this funding vs that getting
funded out of the general fund and what is being prioritized instead.
That is what I am trying to understand.
• Comment (Jillian) I think the presentation will go over it.
b. Comment (Denny) I thought the presentation on the annexation proposal/the
public hear that Renee was also at was impressive. It was impressive to see
all the different jurisdictions. I thought there was good representation from the
boards. There were only a couple members of the public there that were also
affiliated with boards. I don’t know if you (Renee) wanted to talk on that as
well.
• Comment (Renee) I thought it was a great opportunity for different
board members to meet each other and contribute. There was good
collaboration. That was the super issues meeting that took place a
few weeks ago. We were all invited. If you ever had the opportunity to
join, it is great.
9. STAFF REPORTS
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a. Ashley Kailburn, Senior Specialist in Economic Sustainability introduced
herself. She started with the Economic Health department about a month ago
and will be covering for Jillian as staff liaison in March.
• John asked who all will be missing March to see if they need to
cancel but it sounds like they will have quorum.
10. OTHER BUSINESS
11. ADJOURNMENT
a. (5:59pm)
Minutes approved by a vote of the Board on XX/XX/XX